


Addamswood

by KatWritesStuff



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types, Matilda - Roald Dahl
Genre: Addams Family References, Addamswood, Adventure, Crossover, Cute, Eventual Romance, F/F, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, First Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gothic, Lesbian, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Relationship, Light Angst, Magic, Mutual Pining, Rescue Missions, Slow Burn, Witchcraft, f/f - Freeform, wlw, wlw - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2020-09-29 16:17:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 114
Words: 76,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatWritesStuff/pseuds/KatWritesStuff
Summary: Wednesday has made it as far as university, strange as ever. She has found a major that suits her, and is excelling in both the practical and the theory elements of her course.The one thing that she isn’t excelling at, is love.Until she meets Wormwood.*Life after the Wormwoods was a sweet paradise of books. Matilda had everything that she could hope for in a family, and it was hard to move away, but she had to grow up. There's only so much honey that one person can take.One Major in Literature, another in History, she's set to be the highest graduating student of the year. And just as it has always been, she is shunned for it by everyone.Except the peculiar girl with skin so pale it seems bloodless, and waist length raven hair in two stern braids.*When Pugsley ends up in near fatal danger (at the hands of someone other than Wednesday) she takes matters into her own hands with a little help from her study partner. They're an uncanny pair, kooky and peculiar and perfect for one another.*Updates Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday





	1. Wednesday

“I’m going to need every book you’ve got on devices of historical warfare. If you have any that are specifically tools against the person I would like those as well. This list should be a start.”

She watched the woman gulp, and tried not to roll her eyes as she presented her card. 

“I’m a student. It’s a research project.”

“Miss, I don’t mean to alarm you but you appear to have blood on your dress.”

Wednesday looked down. She had missed a spot. 

“Oh, research subjects. Nothing to worry about, they were quite dead when I started and Mother insisted that for the initial trials at least I had to use animal blood. ”

The woman behind the desk paled even further. Wednesday hoped that she wouldn’t be sick, it was such a bother when people couldn’t hold their stomach at such things. It was just a bit of blood. 

“So those books?”

“You won’t be able to have at least three of the ones on this list,” came the shaking reply. “Someone has already checked them out on long term loan.”

Wednesday peered at the screen where the woman was pointing a shaking finger, and quickly read the titles. 

“Medieval Village Warfare, Peasant Revolts, Castle Construction and Contents. Who has these?”

There was a squeak from behind the counter, before a second, more confident voice answered from somewhere over Wednesday’s left shoulder. 

“I do, but you’re welcome to have a look through them. I will probably be a while.”

Wednesday turned to look at the girl. She was small, with pencil straight hair and a firm expression that was enough to rival her own. She was the perfect example of neat. Tidy shoes, a well pressed skirt, and a little red bow tied in her hair. If Wednesday hadn’t heard her speak she would have written the girl off almost immediately. But there was a strange confidence in her words, and in the fact that - for the last 10 seconds - she had met Wednesday’s eyes and not felt the need to look away. 

She was, in short, baffling. 

“I’ll endeavour to not get too much blood on them.”

“I would, it makes the librarians twitchy.”

The brown haired girl smiled, and held out her hand. 

“Matilda Wormwood-Honey.”

“Wednesday Addams.”

She sat down, pulling one of the piled books towards her and flicking through to the index. 

Wormwood, it was an interesting name. Especially when tempered by the saccharine of Honey. It was one of the more useful herbs in her mother’s garden. Wormwood. When you had been given such a name why on earth would you use Matilda? She certainly wouldn’t.

“What are you looking for?” 

Matilda had peered over her book with an eyebrow cocked in a fashion that until then Wednesday had considered entirely her own. 

“Torture methods for single persons from the Norman Conquest.”

“Page 394.”

And as though it was nothing in the world she looked back to the pages of her own book, making notes in a neat, looped hand. Wednesday tried not to stare, turning to the page that she had been advised and skimming for the information she needed. There were some fascinating diagrams.

They worked together in relative silence for several hours, before the arrival of someone at their table interrupted Wednesday’s thoughts. 

“We’re closing up now, ladies. I’m afraid you’ll need to pack up.”

Wednesday made a few last notes and closed the book. 

“If you have more to do, we could meet back here tomorrow?” Matilda was smiling at her and she tried not to grimace. 

“Well as you have checked out every useful book on the subject it seems as though that’s my only option.”

“You have the option to not study, if you would prefer that.”

“I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

She nodded at the librarians, turned and made for the doors. It had been several hours of complete silence, but it had been almost fun. She was going to have to talk to her mother about it. Or perhaps her father, whichever one of them was likely to be the most sensible. 

There was something about the way the Wormwood girl looked at her that Wednesday found unnerving, perhaps it was the total lack of fear that she had never seen before then. Perhaps it was something else.


	2. Matilda

The bus ride home was long, but Matilda had promised that she would go back for dinner. It would be worth it considering all that was in her fridge was pancake mix and cheese, but since her strange encounter that afternoon she was half hoping to be able to spend a little time alone. 

Wednesday. It wasn't a normal kind of name. But then, she clearly wasn't a normal kind of girl. Matilda had seen her in various classes, had sat behind her a few times in history and watched as she drew intricate diagrams of devices that Matilda could only have imagined in her worst nightmares. She had never seen the girl smile, never really heard her speak for that matter. She was...interesting. 

It helped that she had been prepared to sit with Matilda and work, something that nobody else had ever shown any inclination to do. She hadn't babbled endlessly at her either, about how good it must be to have it come so easily to her, or about whether or not she could help with their assignments. She just sat, as Matilda did, and worked. It was singularly unusual. 

She wondered, as the bus clattered it's way towards home, what kind of person Wednesday Addams was. What would make a girl silent as the grave, sombre, and dedicated to the study of death. She knew what it was that had drawn her to that path. The nature of humanity had shown itself to her very early indeed, but though there was a definite disdain for the general populous emanating from Wednesday with every step, it was different to her own. 

The house was as she had left it, over grand, too large for two people, with a garden that was getting a little out of hand. It was ridiculous really that they had kept it, but it was the only family home that either of them really knew.

"Matilda!"

"Yes I'm home," she called down the drive, bending down to scoop up one of the many cats from the area as she walked. 

"Excellent, dinner is almost ready."

She nodded, dropping her bag of books inside the door as it swung closed behind her and breathing in the smells of home. There was an open fire somewhere, and whatever was being prepared in the kitchen was wafting through to the reception room. 

"What are you cooking?"

"What do you think?"

She had to smile, it had always been the same answer and she had never failed to guess correctly. She took a deep breath, hesitated a moment, and then called back. 

"Yesterday's brisket into a pie, with chips."

There was a chuckle from the kitchen and she knew that she was right. She was always right. "Well come and set the table. Then you can tell me all about your day."

She kicked off her shoes, dropping the cat down to find it's own way out, and padded through to the huge dining room. It was one of the rooms that they had done almost nothing with, looking as it would have when the house was first built. A huge fireplace took up half of the room, with the other half sporting a table that could have sat twelve with room to spare. It was all plush carpet and dark wood, and Matilda loved it. There were places in the house that were all too modern for her tastes. But this room held all of what it had once been, a dining room fit for kings. Not that there had ever been kings there. Lords, once, but never kings. 

"So, how was today?"

It had taken her a few years to get used to calling Miss Honey Jenny, but after several tests of various things that seemed to be the best option. She had never been comfortable with any of the parent type names, and Miss Honey was far too formal to use in the house. So Jenny it was. 

"It was alright. I ended up studying with a strange girl in the library."

"Oh?" 

"She was nice, well nice enough. She's in my history class."

"Well I'm glad that you're finally making friends. It's daft that the others shun you just for learning well. You know I always tried to put a stop to that at school but," she shrugged, "children are apparently just terrible."

"So are some adults," Matilda said, reminded of several of her teachers who had also disliked her ability to learn. "But she seemed okay. We are going to do the same tomorrow."

They chatted for a while, leaving the dining hall soon after to dinner to retreat to the sitting room, and the chocolate box that seemed to never run any lower. Matilda took her usual seat, floating a chocolate over to herself to save getting up. 

"Now Matilda, you know you aren't supposed to use your powers in the house."

She grinned, and floated another one to Jenny's lap. 

"But I suppose I will let you off just this once. It's good to see that you're still practising."

"Not that I need much practice."

"Still, I'm glad that you aren't letting it get the best of you."

The smile faded. That was always a risk, that she would lose her temper and her powers would act alone. She hoped that it would never happen. That nobody would ever have to know. She would only be shunned more for it.


	3. Wednesday

In the end, Wednesday had decided to confide in Lurch about the strange girl in the library. She had always been able to talk to Lurch, largely because he never had anything to say in return. 

So, when the next day she arrived and the same girl was sat at the same desk, with a space and a stack of books waiting for her, she felt slightly more prepared. 

“Hello,” she said, sitting down and pulling out her own notes. “I have brought some things from the family archive that I thought might be of interest.”

She pulled out some replica devices, some that had been made specifically for her, some that had been in the archive before she was born, and spread them across the table. 

“I noted that you had a lot of books on weaponry and warfare, so it seemed only fitting that you would be looking at such things. Be careful,” she warned as Matilda reached with interest towards one of the smaller knives, “that’s far sharper than it looks, and if you catch this button here just wrong it will seep a venom onto the blade that would do truly terrible things to you.”

An eyebrow was raised in her general direction, and then the girl smiled. 

“Something tells me that the librarians aren’t too happy with all of this being on their table.”

“I cleaned the blood off the more recent pieces,” Wednesday shrugged. “Though if you want a practical demonstration I would prefer to do so outside. There’s more space.”

“You know how to use these things?” 

Wednesday frowned, annoyed by the question. 

“Of course I do. Anyway, thank you for studying with me.”

Matilda nodded, and she took that as enough conversation for one stretch. There was work to be done, and she had limited time with the materials as it seemed that they weren’t going to be released to her any time soon. 

She was in the middle of a fascinating chapter detailing differences in forging of metal spikes for worn devices when the librarians approached to once again inform them that the library would be closing. She marked the page, huffed, and then looked up to her study partner with the smallest hint of an idea.

“This is a most irregular request,” she began, “but I need to keep working on this for tomorrow and you have all of the reference materials that I need. It seems that you are keen to keep examining these specimens, and I have more of them that I’m certain would interest you. I propose a trade. Accompany me back to my family home to study, I will use the books and give you access to our family weapons archive. You would of course need to be supervised but it would allow you the time and space to really examine the pieces.”

She watched curiosity and hesitation cross Matilda’s face, before a calm resolution settled on it. 

“I would be very interested to see more of these, yes. But are you sure that your parents would be happy with that?”

“Oh, yes. They are always keen for visitors. Though I should warn you that you may well be invited to stay for dinner. I can endeavour to ensure that my Grandmama doesn’t poison anything.”

The girl didn’t even flinch. 

“That sounds good to me. Lead the way.”

They walked in absolute silence. Wednesday dragging her cart full of weaponry while Matilda dragged one of her own full of books. They attracted several stares as they went, but from what she could tell, Wednesday thought that Matilda was as accustomed to that as she was. 

When they reached the house, Wednesday noted the first ever sign of surprise from Matilda, and though she wouldn’t have admitted it she was a little glad. It was strange the way the girl had taken everything in her stride, down to the fact that Wednesday had presented her with various unique antique weapons in the middle of the university library. But, she supposed, theirs was one of those houses that was worthy of a gasp. Towering and black, with a garden of thorns and the small cemetery out the back. It was magnificent. 

“Welcome to the Addams residence. Try not to step on any of the plants, they don’t like it much.”

She lead the way through to the front door, hauling at a chain with sections larger than her hands to heave it open. It creaked less than usual and she made a note to spray a little vinegar on the hinges later that day. It wouldn’t do to have a silent entrance. 

“Mother,” she called into the gloom, “father I have brought a…I have brought someone from class home to study a while.”

There was no answer, but then there was always the chance that her parents were somewhere in the depths of the house where they would be completely out of range. 

“I would keep your shoes on,” she said to Matilda as she let the chain relax to close the door. “And if it looks like it might be sharp, it is.”

Matilda nodded, but there was no reply. Wednesday gave her an appraising look, and was disappointed to find that there was no fear in the girls face at all. A small measure of wonder, some curiosity and something that she couldn’t measure, but not a single ounce of fear. Wednesday was disappointed. If there was one thing that she prided her house on it was striking fear into the hears and minds of those who did not belong there, those who were to be considered ‘normal’. 

More and more she was wondering if the Wormwood girl could be considered normal at all.


	4. Matilda

Matilda wanted to see everything of the strange house all at once. It was larger than hers by a huge margin, and in every corner there was something to look at. Though she was certain that she should have been afraid, that anyone else would have been, it was just all a little too interesting for that. 

“Wednesday,” she said, finally finding her voice amid the fascination. “Just how long have your family lived here?”

“Oh, a couple of hundred years I imagine. Perhaps more. Certainly for as long as the records retain. Why?”

“It’s a very fine house, and clearly very old. Was curious as to whether you knew the year of it’s construction.”

“My uncle would know. Perhaps you can speak with him about it. I tend to focus on other matters.”

The entire house radiated silence. It was as a tomb, dark and still. Spiders meandered freely along walls and seemed to be cultivated in some areas for near perfect cobwebs. If she had been told then that it was all a joke, and that she had been taken into a Halloween attraction she might not have been terribly surprised. But there was an earnest way to the way that Wednesday led her though the halls that made her think that it really was just a home for interesting people. 

After a few moments they approached a closed door with a pale yellow light flickering around it. 

“I need to let my mother know that you are here, so that if you are alone for too long you don’t get eaten. It would be best if you come and say hello, too.”

Matilda nodded. It felt very formal, but all that she had seen of Wednesday was. Formal, old fashioned in her ways. 

She was met as the door opened by a woman swathed in black. With hair the same colour as Wednesday’s but allowed to hang loose around her shoulders. She had the same pale skin which was only accentuated by a deep red lipstick and dark eye makeup. Wednesday was, Matilda could see, startlingly similar in looks to her mother. 

“Mother, I am going to be studying with a girl from my class.” Wednesday gestured to her and Matilda gave a small wave, feeling instantly stupid for doing so. “This is Matilda Wormwood.”

“Wormwood-Honey,” Matilda corrected. People were always getting that wrong. 

“Pleased to meet you, Matilda. I am, as you will have surmised, Wednesday’s mother. Please feel free to call me Morticia. Have you met my husband yet?”

“I have not yet had the pleasure no.”

Matilda couldn’t take her eyes away from Morticia’s, which seemed to be looking into her more than at her. She was held in the gaze like the prey of a snake and it was a little unsettling. All the same, Moriticia did not appear to be unfriendly in any way. Just, intense to a point far beyond that which most people managed. 

“Matilda would be very interested to see the armoury, she is studying weapons.”

“Of course, I’m sure that The Thing will take her. Or you could ask Lurch. Whichever you prefer. Has your brother come home with you?”

As Matilda opened her mouth to ask after the nature of The Thing, she learned it. A tug at her skirt drew her attention down to the ground, where a single entirely disembodied hand was waving at her. It seemed to be propping itself up on what should have been a severed wrist, and was frantically gesturing in a manner that Matilda could only assume was a form of communication.

She leaned down and extended her own hand to scoop up the one that was now running on it’s fingers in small circles on the floor. 

“Ah, I see you’ve met The Thing,” Morticia said, smiling. “He seems quite excited to see you, so I’m sure he would be more than happy to take you through to the armoury. Just don’t let him jump around too much in there, it really can cause such a mess.”

“Of course,” she said, letting the hand run up one of her arms and back down the other one, leaping clean over her head. “He really is a fascinating chap. How did you come by him?”

“Oh he’s been with us for years. Comes in very handy.”

Matilda didn’t see the faintest hint of a smile on either face, so she did her best to hide her own. The Thing was tugging at her sleeve while perched on her shoulder like a bird, and as she looked at him he began to point down a corridor that was shrouded in shadow. 

“If you follow him,” Wednesday said, “he will take you to the armoury. You can go alone if you would like to, or I can bring the books and come with you?”

“I think,” Matilda said, looking into the long darkness, “It would be nice to have some company while we study.”

“Fine,” Wednesday shrugged. “Mother could you ask Lurch to bring the books?”

“And some drinks as well for your friend perhaps.” 

Matilda caught Morticia’s eye and found a smile there. She returned it, though slightly tentatively, before being swept down the darkened halls towards yet another enormous, chained door.

It was there, in the deeper parts of the house, that she started to hear things. Strange creaking and rustlings, the rattling of chain and a deep rumbling that sounded like something enormous snoring beneath them. Everywhere she looked there was more darkness, but the even steps of Wednesday beside her were calm, and so she pressed on even though she could see almost nothing ahead of her. 

She was pulled to the left, and into light that seemed dazzling after the long darkness. They were in a corridor with old flame torches on the wall and doors at intervals on both sides. The walls were stone, the floor much the same, and it was all smooth with wear that suggested it had been walked over for numbers of years. 

As they walked her footsteps rang on the stone, and it was then that she noticed that, on the new surface and in the light, Wednesday was making no sound at all. 

“How do you do that?” she asked. 

“Do what?”

“You’re not making any noise. I’m certain that you were before but now it’s like you’re not even there.”

Wednesday shrugged, and though nothing seemed to change about the way that she was walking, the sound returned to her steps. 

“It’s something that all Addams women learn how to do. A skill from my great aunt Calpurnia. Before they burned her alive anyway.”

Matilda nodded, but didn’t press further. She turned her attention instead to the hand that was scurrying at full sped ahead of them, running far faster than should have been possible. For a moment, her mind told her that it had to be impossible, that it was robotic in some way. But her good judgement overruled that. After all, what she was capable of was technically impossible too but there she was. She wondered what the Addams’ would make of her talents, but she wasn’t sure that she was ready to trust Wednesday with them, no matter how unusual her family seemed to be. Or how accepting. 

“Here we are.” 

She watched Wednesday push open the heavy wooden door, and followed through into a room where everything she had ever studied seemed to be sitting. 

“Welcome to the armoury. Try not to touch too many things, the ones that are cursed are marked. I would avoid things that look recently bloodied, and let Lurch know if you want demonstrations. He’s very good with the larger items.”

“Lurch?”

It didn’t take her long to see him. A towering, monster of a man with a comically square head. He was dressed as a butler and carrying a her satchel of books in one hand with a drinks tray in the other. He bowed as he offered her a glass.

“Thank you, Lurch.”

There was a nod, but nothing further. 

“This really is a fascinating home, Wednesday.”

“So you have told me. I’ll be over here if you have any questions that aren’t answered by the information cards.”

Once again Matilda was thrust into the eerie silence of the house, but she didn’t have any time to think about it. There was so much to look at, things that she had never dreamed of seeing, and a paper to finish before the morning. 

Lurch stayed with her, lifting swords almost as large as she was out of their holders and showing them to her, presenting her with books in languages that she had never heard of and generally touring her silently around the room. He was enormous beyond measure but surprisingly gentle, seemingly accustomed to the notion that those around him were smaller and weaker than he was. She followed him happily, making notes and taking sketches. She wanted to take photographs but something told her that it wouldn’t be taken kindly too. 

Every few moments she took a glance at where Wednesday was sitting, bolt upright, making notes from three different books at once. One of them was so ancient it was nearly falling apart, and she turned the pages with reverence. She, of all of them, was the most fascinating. Matilda had never met someone so still, so comfortable within themselves to be as quiet as she was. There was an entrancing confidence about her that made Matilda want to spend more time around her. She had never met anyone like Wednesday before, and she had a feeling that outside of that house she wouldn’t ever again.


	5. Wednesday

“Mother has asked if you would like to stay for dinner.”

Wednesday watched Matilda jump, and was pleased to see that Lurch at least had seen her coming and was ready to catch the flail that the girl had been inspecting. 

“You know you really shouldn’t creep up on people like that.” 

“Or you could be more aware of your surroundings. But that does not answer the question of dinner. Would you like to stay?”

It appeared that there was a moment of hesitation from the girl. It was a harmless enough request, but she was taking time over the answer. Strange. She had barely hesitated at all at the previous invitation. Finally, after looking at the floor, and at her feet, and at the ceiling, and everywhere else except for at Wednesday, she gave an answer.

“As long as it would be no trouble.”

“Do you plan on causing trouble?” Wednesday raised an eyebrow.

“No.”

“That’s a shame. But you would be welcome to stay regardless.”

That drew a small laugh out of the girl, and she nodded. 

“We should go now. Otherwise the better seats will be taken up by Pugsley and Puberty.”

“Who are-”

“They’re my brothers.”

She was already heading for the door. Her work abandoned. Matilda would need to catch up if she wanted the good seats. Nobody wanted to end up sitting between Grandmama and Fester. 

Eventually she heard the swift footsteps of someone running to catch up to her. She was learning quickly it seemed. The Thing was still dancing around their feet, showing off for the guest no doubt. He relished company so much more than the others. 

Wednesday had never had a guest for dinner before. They were particularly uncommon, and nobody who wasn’t family had ever come more than once. She wondered how Matilda would cope. She had been less than phased by everything in the house so far. But dinner, well that was an occasion and with the entire family there it would be interesting to see if she could hold her own. 

Even with Matilda slowing her down, Wednesday was still first to the table which was the way that she liked it. She could hear her mother humming along to the gramophone an could almost see her father swooping in to complete the tango. She busied herself with setting the table the way that she liked it, and only remembered that Matilda had no idea what dinner at the Addams household was going to look like. 

“You should sit here,” she said, pointing to a chair at the end. “That way you aren’t likely to be elbowed by anyone. And I will sit next to you which is better for all of us. It’ might be best to make sure that my uncle Fester doesn’t sit opposite you or you might end up getting kicked a bit. It’s not his fault but his legs are longer than you might think.”

She waited until Matilda had nodded, and taken her seat, before popping her head into the kitchen where her mother was waltzing around on her own, entirely oblivious to the dinner that appeared to be cooking itself. 

“Do you need us to do anything other than set the table mother?”

“No, no it’s all in hand. Your father will be home any minute.”

She headed back to the table. Lurch was serving Matilda yet another drink, and was keeping very close behind her as though worried about something. She made a note to ask him about that later. The Thing was hopping up and down the table, twirling and dancing and generally showing off. 

“Thing, if you carry on like that I’m going to sell you to the next circus that comes by.”

That was the voice of her youngest, and most annoying brother, Pubert. She had always been told that when one child was born an existing one had to die, but Pubert had entirely failed in his duties to inhume either her or Pugsley, so they all had to persist together. She was certain that, had she not been the oldest, she would have been able to remove one of her siblings without any problems. 

“Pubert you remain terrible as ever. This is Matilda Wormwood. She studies with me.”

“That must be awful for her,” he turned to Matilda. “I’m so sorry that you have to spend time in this, less than charming company.”

Wednesday rolled her eyes and took her seat. Pubert was only seven but he was turning into a tiny copy of their father, only far less suave. She was almost pleased to see that Matilda did not look at all impressed by him, and had instead of engaging gone back to being entertained by The Thing, who was dancing with her outstretched hand. 

“Pubert,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Be a dear and fetch your brother. He needn’t be late for dinner when we have guests.”

“He won’t be coming to dinner, Mother.”

Wednesday was startled. It was very unlike Pugsley to miss home cooking, especially if there would be an opportunity to attempt to embarrass her in front of someone new. 

“What possible reason could he have for not coming to dinner.”

She was trying to sound nonchalant but she had a feeling that her littlest sibling was seeing right through her. 

“He’s out with one of the Valk girls, don’t ask me which one because I don’t know. But he has said that he’s staying out rather than coming home.” Pubert shrugged. “All it means is that I get his desert.”

Wednesday frowned, she didn’t like the Valk twins, and with good reason. They were evil, though of course that was quite a lot of their charm, but they were cruel in a way that even the worst of her family were not. Of course you had the odd few that were completely insane, but they weren’t relentless in their tyranny the way the Valk family were known to be. They were exactly the wrong kind of people for Pugsley to be involving himself which, which of course would be exactly why he was doing it. 

Through the entire exchange Matilda had been silent, and when Wednesday glanced across to her it appeared that she was deep in thought. It was a look she had seen a few times when they had been studying, and had always assumed it as an attempt to solve a puzzle of some kind. 

“Wormwood-” she began, but the doors burst open and her father came striding through with her uncle and there was no time for any kind of conversation. Dinner had officially started.


	6. Matilda

Matilda walked out of the front door, escorted by Lurch, The Thing and Wednesday, and she couldn’t help but smile. It had been, for many years, just her and Jenny and she had even before then never really experienced a proper family dinner. There had been a huge amount of chaos at the table, but it seemed that it was all an organised part of the fun and everyone knew exactly what their part in it was. 

Food had been passed up and down at alarming speeds, but always lingered with her for long enough that someone could get things onto her plate - even when she was adamant that she had eaten more than enough. There was a hum to the chatter that, even though she didn’t and couldn’t join in warmed her. It was clear, that strange as they were, the family was built on such a foundation of love the like of which many never got to know. 

“Thank you for inviting me to stay. I had a very enjoyable evening.”

Wednesday didn’t smile, but she did give Matilda a nod that she was learning was about as good. 

“It was interesting to have dinner company. You would be very welcome to come again if you have more that you would like to see.”

“There’s definitely more that I am interested in,” Matilda admitted. She was far more excited than she would like to discuss having seen the various treasures that the armoury held, and that was just the beginning of the house. Through dinner there had been references to a lab, and a library, and a ballroom on the lower floors. She wanted to see all of it, and spend more time with the strangely welcoming family that stood on the steps behind Wednesday to wish her on her way. 

“You are expected home I assume?” Gomez looked worried for a moment. “It is very late and this is not quite the time that we would expect a young lady to walk alone.”

“I walk alone at night all the time,” Wednesday said, raising an eyebrow at Matilda. “I’m certain that if I am safe to do so she will be.”

“You are an Addams, remember.” Gomez chided. “I do not know that there are many things in this town that would dare to cross your path. I do not know that your friend here has the same prowess. Lurch, see that she gets home safely.”

Lurch nodded and Matilda started to argue, but she was stopped with the raising of a pale hand. 

“We will all feel better if you are accompanied, whether you need it or not. And anyway, Lurch likes the evenings. It will do him good to be outside.”

She nodded, thanked them all again for their hospitality, and turned back to Wednesday. 

“If you would like the books over the weekend I would be happy to bring them back? You could take my number?”

“Do you not need to submit your work by the morning?”

“I do, but the books have more in them than this assignment, so I was planning to have them out a while more.”

She was starting to get chilly, but it didn’t take long to exchange numbers and get underway. There was a brief wave from the family before she took to the path, Lurch at her side lumbering along. 

It was then, while walking in silence next to the large man, that it really sank in how much she had enjoyed the company of the Addams’. Of course she loved her home and the way that she had grown up once she was away from the Wormwoods, but there had never been that bustle about her house. It was just her and Jenny rattling around in a place that they were too small for, but the Addams clan really knew how to fill up a room. 

She had always known that her childhood was strange, and that there had been something missing from it but she had never known what. With the reality of a proper family dinner now firmly in her mind she knew. She had had everything that Jenny could give her, but she had never really had a family. Not in either of the homes that she had lived in. 

“Lurch, it really was lovely to spend an evening with you all. But it’s a shame that you don’t talk.”

Lurch bowed.

“I hope that Wednesday does want to see me again. Would you perhaps tell her that? I feel certain that you can communicate far more with her than you would with me. I would very much enjoy seeing all of you again. And perhaps she could come to meet my guardian at some stage. Though there might need to be some preparation for that.”

There was still silence from Lurch, but it felt better to be talking at least a little. Even that was rare. She lived alone, studied alone, worked alone. There had never been the noise of a family, and as she walked and chatted to Lurch she had to admit, if only to herself, that she was a little jealous of what Wednesday had.


	7. Wednesday

“Your friend was weird.”

“Go away Pubert, I’m trying to study.”

Wednesday looked at the books that Matilda had left her with, a parting gift of sorts in the armoury, with a pink post-it note on them on which the girl had drawn a smiley face and written a single word. Thanks.

“Did you see her dancing with The Thing?”

“Yes Pubert, I was at the same table that you were.”

“Are you going to keep her around?”

Wednesday snapped the book closed.

“I think a better question, Pubert, is what I will I do with _you_ if you persist in disturbing me. This assignment is very important. Go away.”

She was finally left in a blessed silence, but her mind had been distracted to the point that the notes she was taking would be pointless. 

Matilda was peculiar, that much was certain, but perhaps not in the way that she had expected. She had thought, as had always been the case, that when Matilda met her family she would be horrified. But the exact opposite thing had happened. She had been charming and charmed by them, making conversation at the table as though talk of dragon intestines was a usual part of her routine. She had been cordial with her father and had entirely dealt with Pubert in a way that Wednesday found fascinating. She wondered, and then chided herself for doing so, what on earth kind of life Matilda must live to be so unphased by the family who had been described by the rest of the town as kooky. 

She opened another book and tried to clear her mind to start working again. But every time she started there was another strange, intrusive thought. What had she sent Matilda home to? If her normality was pleasant, what on earth was the girl going back to?

Wednesday slammed the book closed, grabbing a jacket and running for the front door. 

“Lurch,” she shouted. “Lurch we need to go for a walk.”

“Where are you doing darling, it’s not even a full moon.”

“I just, need to check on something, Grandmama. I’ll be back before the sunrise.”

“Well I should hope so dear, that early morning light does nothing for your complexion.”

She flicked the hood of the jacket up, and stepped into the night, Lurch his usual two steps behind. 

“Take me to where you took her, Lurch. I just. There’s something not right.”

There was a nod, and Lurch started walking in the direction of the university. 

Why was she so worried? She stomped along, enjoying the relative quiet but disturbed by the very nature of what was happening. Perhaps it was that she had never had friends, and perhaps it was that she was just baffled by the fact that someone from the outside had integrated with the Addams’ so well, but she knew that something wasn’t right. 

“Lurch, did you take her back to the university?” They were walking closer to it, the halls of residence looming in the distance.

Lurch nodded.

“Darn, I don’t think we will learn much there. Perhaps we could send The Thing to-”

She halted the thought, aware suddenly that she sounded as cackling as her grandmother. To what, exactly? To watch a girl who she had known for all of two days, to ensure that something wasn’t going on that should worry her. She had jumped to a conclusion when she had always been taught to assess information and make deductive leaps. She was ashamed of herself, and right to be so. 

“I think I have walked enough, Lurch. We should go back to the house. As Grandmama said, it’s not even a full moon.”

Why had it struck her so strongly that there must be something other about the girl? Why on earth should it matter to her? She had grown up with those that the world would have said were peculiar, why on earth should she take notice of a girl who, from the outside at least, was perfectly ordinary according to everyone else.

A voice in the back of her mind answered, and Wednesday wasn’t sure that she liked the response.

_She’s not normal, is she. She’s interested in the same things as you, and though she looks like the outside world would like for her to she is completely alone. You’ve seen her in classes. They leave a space around her, just like they do you. They whisper about her as she walks by, just like they do you. She knows things that they could only dream of, and they fear her. Just like they do you._

She shook the thought away. There was nobody like her. Even among the Addams clan she was, odd. Too interested in the studies of the modern world, her mother had said. Though they would support her through it all it would be so lovely if she just took one potion making or conjuring as all Addams women did it would make them all feel so much more at ease. 

But she had never had the patience for potions, and hexes were dull when they weren’t being aimed at your brother. She wanted to make things, to build things, to show what power the mind can harness without relying on a talent that she wasn’t sure anyone outside of her clan even had. Certainly her Grandmama was a witch and a seer and her great great Grandmother had been one of the few real witches to be burned at the stake, but that wasn’t Wednesday. 

Perhaps that was why she was so interested in Matilda. She, too, was doing something beyond the norms of expectation. 

_Just like me._

“Did you find what you needed dear?” Her Grandmama gave her a near sane smile. 

“I believe I did.”

“She will be back you know.”

“Grandmama, I am certain it has been discussed before, but you are really not to dig into the thoughts of family members, it’s impolite.”

“I didn’t,” the smile became entirely more mad, “but there was no rule about guests. She’s very interesting you know. Lots of things tucked away that even I couldn’t poke at. Shut me right out, and I think she knew I was poking. Clever girl. She’ll be back for sure.”

“That’s,” Wednesday stopped. The only person to ever successfully shut her grandmama out of her mind had been her own mother. “Interesting.”

It was too late to study, at least if she wanted the next day to be in any way productive, so she thanked Lurch for the walk and retired to her room. After a moment with her spiders, who were doing excellent work in the far corner that she would be grieved to move elsewhere into the house, she changed and slumped into bed. Her mind still racing. 

W: Wormwood. It’s Wednesday.

M: The nature of a text message is that it tells you who it’s from. But thank you for the confirmation I suppose.

W: My family have advised that it would be agreeable to have you for dinner again, should you wish it.

M: What are you doing this weekend?

W: Preparing for the next moon, beheading roses with my mother, learning to tango against my wishes and moving my spiders to work in a different room of the house.

M: Of course. I should have assumed as such.

Wednesday was preparing a suitably sarcastic answer when her phone buzzed again. 

M: It sounds like fun.

W: You could visit if you wished? You may be forced to tango with my father.

M: I think I can handle your father.

Wednesday laughed. Matilda almost sounded confident, and that was a terrible thing to be when faced with learning to tango with her father. But there was a strange, light feeling in her stomach at the notion that she might not be spending yet another weekend entertaining her parents and avoiding her brothers. 

W: Breakfast is at 6am. Arrive any time then or after.

M: See you in the morning.

What would a Saturday in her house with someone else be like? She tried to think, but bar the brief camp boyfriend she had never had a friend visit. Or at least, never visit and stay. There was a part of her that was, strangely, worried that it would be too much, and that Matilda wouldn’t visit again. 

She didn’t want to admit that she didn’t want that to happen.


	8. Matilda

Matilda had been staring at her wardrobe since 5am, cursing the fact that she didn’t own a single thing that was black. 

_How can I have made it this many years without anything? It would be fun to turn up looking like I fit in._

She settled on brown and navy, two colours which made up most of her wardrobe. While she dressed her makeup swirled around her, applying itself to her face in a manner that was more useful than she had imagined it could be. Getting ready took half the time when you could literally do several things at once. Jenny had told her that she needed to use her powers more, she hadn’t specified how. 

With a black Alice band holding her hair out of her eyes, she spread her powers quickly across the room to tidy everything up, then ran out of the door with 30 minutes to get her to the Addams family manor. 

As she ran, though it was foolish to do so in the daylight, she set herself to practising something that Jenny had expressly banned her from doing. She gathered her powers up to her feet, and as she ran she lifted. It worked for all of five seconds before she stumbled and had to catch herself to not fall. She made it a little closer every time, but never quite close enough. 

She made it to the front door of the Addams manor at 6:02, and as she raised a hand to knock the door swung open. 

“Wormwood, you’re late,” Wednesday said with an eyebrow raised. “Lucky for you my brother is elsewhere so there will be a good seat at the table.”

“I don’t know that you can call two minutes late.” She grimaced a little at the use of the name that Wednesday seemed to favour. It didn’t sound so terrible coming from her, but it was a sour reminder of a past she tried to put aside. 

“Then I can’t imagine that you have a solid grasp on time. Come on, things will be getting cold.”

Matilda handed her jacket to Lurch who always seemed to be a few steps behind them and followed Wednesday back into the familiar chaos of their dining hall. Breakfast was in full swing despite the four minutes that she was now late, and she was greeted by a chorus of good mornings as she sat. 

Her plate was filled before she had chance to move, The Thing running dishes up and down the table while waving vigorously at her with a single finger. 

“If I had known that you would be back so early I would have offered a guest room,” Morticia said, almost brightly. “I’m certain some of Wednesday’s pyjamas would have fit you, and Grandmama makes a wonderful nightcap.”

“It’s a lovely offer, thank you, but I didn’t know that I would be coming back until quite late. Perhaps another time.” She sipped on a strange, bitter green drink that left her tongue tingling. She looked over to Wednesday who was eyeing her own drink with some suspicion.

“Artemisia,” Morticia was smiling at her. “Or perhaps as you could call it, Wormwood. It has such wonderful properties, so invigorating for a morning beverage.”

“Oh.” She took another sip. Had they known that she was coming back after all?

She glanced over to Wednesday who was staring daggers at her mother, and guessed that it had been a deliberate creation. Still it tasted nice enough once you were able to ignore the bitterness and she thought that perhaps it would left her more awake than she had been on her arrival.

“Of course in high doses it’s terribly poisonous.” The grandmother winked at her.

She put down the glass.

“Griselda that is unkind.” Gomez put down his own glass. “We would never poison you dear.”

“Not yet.”

Matilda smiled, and then a giggle rose in her chest. Poisoned by her own name, it was just too fitting. 

She lifted her glass once more, tipped it to Grandmama, and drained it. 

“Delightful,” Griselda applauded. “Now that’s a girl who can hold her drink.”

After breakfast Matilda was swiftly whisked away for what Morticia called a proper tour of the house. She was lead through halls and corridors filled with curiosities the like of which she couldn’t have imagined. There were sweeping staircases and stone floors and even a ballroom. It was everything that she had always half wished that the red brick old house that she had grown up in had been. 

“And through there, which I think will interest you, is the library.” Morticia said, gesturing to a corridor that ended in a large set of double doors. “It doesn’t see as much company as it could,” she glanced at Wednesday who rolled her eyes as soon as her mother had turned her back, but in time for Matilda to see the reaction. “It is a lovely room, though.”

Then they were in the greenhouses, a connected series of rooms that were walled with thick thorned vines blooming roses so deep red they were nearly black. 

“Finally, we have my pride and joy.”

“And my weekly servitude. Beheading.”

When Matilda looked puzzled Morticia took pity on her. 

“The roses only bloom for a day or so before they start to turn, and then they are just perfect for all kinds of things. Several make it into the vase and the rest go for remedies and potions and the occasional invocation. Wednesday _should_ be learning these things. Until she takes a more active interest, she tends the roses.”

“Beheading.”

“Call it whatever you like, dear.”

Morticia wafted away, gliding in a manner that made it look as though she wasn’t quite touching the ground. Though Matilda was sure that she must be.”

“Invocations?” she asked once she and Wednesday were alone. 

“My mother is particularly skilled in hexing, but yes other things as well. Do you want the basket for the heads, or the knife?”

She took the basket, and meandered through the greenhouses only half paying attention while Wednesday worked. They were silent, but it wasn’t the uncomfortable sort that she usually found herself in. Wednesday never seemed to say more than was required, and that was alright with her. It gave her space to think. 

Perhaps these people are more like me than I thought. Potions, herbs, invocations. It’s not a name that I would have given to my powers, but like or not if anyone knew they would brand me a freak. A witch. These people wear that badge with a kind of pride. Maybe I should tell them.

“That’s all of them. Not as many this week, mother is losing her touch. I need to take them to Grandmama. I can meet you in the library?”

“Where is your Grandmama?”

“In the lab, I presume, with Fester.”

“I think I would like to see the lab, if that’s alright?”

If Wednesday had been the type to shrug, Matilda thought that she might well have, but as it was she just raised an eyebrow.

“If you believe it will be interesting, feel free. But I will warn you, my Grandmama does like to get into the minds of guests.”

Matilda smiled. 

“I think I can deal with that.”

There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of Wednesday’s mouth, which was gone the moment that Matilda noticed it. She wondered what it might look like if Wednesday ever did break a smile. 

“Well that at least should be interesting.”

“So, tell me,” Matilda said as they descended the spiralling staircase down to the lab, “why torture methods?”

“I like to build things.”

It was such a simple sentiment, Matilda was almost surprised.

“So why not architecture?”

“I like to build interesting things. I find no interest in buildings. But things that warp and change the body, things that pull and draw and intersect? That’s interesting. My mother is concerned with the mind, I am much more interested in what a body can withstand. Fester says that I’m a scientist more than I am a witch. Perhaps he is correct.”

“It sounds to me more like you’re an engineer, if you are building these devices that you study,” Matilda mused. “It’s a very transferable skill for careers.”

“I don’t know that an Addams has ever had a career. We work inside the clans, and survive outside of the world.” She sounded bitter. “I’m the first to go to university. The first to study outside of the house. Ever.”

Matilda thought about that for a while, and would have probably said something, anything to break the tension that had risen, but they had reached a heavy metal door that Wednesday banged on in a pattern before taking a few steps back, pulling Matilda with her.

“Who is it?” Came the call from behind the door.

“It’s me, I have your heads,” Wednesday shouted back.

The door swung open towards them, smoke billowing out around it. It smelled like sandalwood and charcoal and Matilda could hear something bubbling inside. 

“Ah, Wednesday.” Fester beamed at them from under his goggles. “And the guest. Come in, come in, let me show you what I’m working on.”

They were in the lab with Fester until the call came down for lunch, and Matilda was almost sad to ascend the stairs again. There were so many fascinating things in the lab, and they were cooking up things that Matilda had never dreamed could be possible. Her education, it seemed, had been very limited. 

“He’s fascinating,” she whispered to Wednesday as they made for the dining hall. “Do you spend a lot of time with him.

Wednesday nodded.

“My brother spends more time, but yes Fester taught us a lot growing up. He’s very good at making things.”

“I still haven’t met your brother.”

“You aren’t missing much.” 

The response was quick, almost a natural reaction it seemed to the mention of Wednesday’s siblings, but Matilda saw a flicker of something else behind it. As though, for just a moment, Wednesday was worried about her brother. She decided it would be better not to mention it. 

After lunch she helped in the moving of an entire army of spiders from Wednesday’s room to other areas of the house. 

“Wednesday’s spiders are famous in the clans,” Morticia said, handing them the collection jars. “They make such beautiful cobwebs.”

Matilda hadn’t known that it was possible to train spiders, but it was seeming more and more as though it would be possible to achieve almost anything in the Addams house. 

They spent the rest of the day in the enormous library, her presence excusing Wednesday from tango practice, a fact that she was slightly disappointed by. She had been interested to see what Wednesday looked like dancing. Everything else she did was strict and almost wooden, but there should be a flow to the tango and she just couldn’t picture it. She secretly hoped that she might be able to see it if she was invited to visit again. 

“You have a fascinating family,” she said, looking briefly across the long library table to where Wednesday was working. “I like them.”

“I believe that they like you, too. But that could well be because I have never before brought someone home who didn’t screech like an idiot the moment they saw Lurch, and then faint when met with The Thing.”

Matilda smiled. She could imagine her own parent’s reactions on meeting the Addams’ and she was almost sorry that it wouldn’t ever happen. It had been so many years since she had even known where they were. 

She was surprised to hear Wednesday’s voice fill the silence. 

“I presume that your family are not similar to mine?”

“No. They aren’t.”

For the first time, Matilda found herself really not wanting to carry on a conversation with Wednesday. She liked the girl more than she had anyone since Lavender, but she wasn’t sure that she was ready to open the discussion about her past. It would mean talking about her powers, apart from anything else. She definitely wasn’t ready to do that. 

Thankfully, Wednesday simply raised her signature eyebrow, and didn’t press any further.


	9. Wednesday

At dinner Pugsley was still missing. Missing one meal could be excused, especially considering his infatuation with whichever of the Valk’s he was courting. But to miss three? That was suspicious. 

It also left nobody to join forces with her against Pubert, and activity that they had enjoyed together since he had been born. It wasn’t the same without someone by her side. Something was wrong. She could feel it the same way she could feel when someone was behind her. 

“Mother, when is Pugsley coming home?”

“I haven’t heard from him. Pass me the spinach.”

“Do you think,” she looked over at Matilda, not certain how much of the family business it was wise to share. “Perhaps Grandmama could…look for him?”

Her mother nodded, and they went about the rest of the meal as though nothing had been said. There was a renewed smugness anytime she looked over at Pubert, though, and she reminded herself to extract some information from him that evening. She had found a very interesting technique in one of the books that Matilda had brought that she thought might prove very effective if applied well.

Still there was the rest of the evening to get through, so she continued with dinner as though there was nothing out of the ordinary, even if the tingling at the back of her neck wouldn’t go away. Addams’ were connected in a way that regular families, she gathered, were not. She always knew when there was something wrong, and she was amazed that her parents weren’t more worried about the whereabouts of her brother. 

It was bad enough that he was entertaining a dalliance with a technically rival family, though their rivalry was nothing more than snobbery these days, but to be gone for so long without checking in while in a rival house was just bad form. They had been taught to be smarter than that. 

Or at least she had. 

After dinner Matilda was invited to step into the ballroom for some traditional family recreation, and Wednesday was dismayed to find that she didn’t decline the offer. She had hoped for a quiet evening in the library, but it seemed that she was going to be forced to tango after all. She hated the tango. 

Her mother made it look so easy, gliding around the hall with her father while she and Matilda enjoyed drinks at the side of the room. But it would be her turn soon enough and then she would be all left feet and clumsiness.

She had never blushed, but she thought if Matilda had to see her like that she just might. 

There was a brief applause when the song came to an end, and as Gomez approached, and Wednesday grimaced, Matilda stood up. 

“Could I try?”

She winked at Wednesday and accepted Gomez’s delighted hand onto the dance floor. Morticia took the vacant seat and leaned in to Wednesday, speaking low. 

“Grandmama isn’t sure where Pugsley is either. Don’t fret though, your father and I have sent Itt out to query with the Valks. He has connections with them. I’m sure that Pugsley is fine.”

Wednesday watched as Gomez ran the most basic steps out on the floor, relishing the chance to teach someone who knew what to do with their hips. 

“You know,” Morticia said, "I do believe that she could be quite good at that. With time."

Wednesday turned to watch, and for a moment wished that she hadn’t. Matilda was good. Though she wasn’t terribly confident there was an ease to the way that she moved that Wednesday had never been able to perfect. Or perhaps it was that she was letting her father lead, something else that Wednesday was not particularly skilled in. 

And she was smiling. 

With all of her face she was smiling, spinning around the ballroom floor as though it was the most joyous thing she had ever experienced. 

“She would be more suited to a waltz, perhaps,” Morticia mused. I’m certain you could teach her that.”

“Why would I-”

Her mother halted her with a look that she couldn’t hold.

“Addams women know, Wednesday. I will wait to tell your father until you are ready.” They both looked back out to the dance floor where the lesson seemed to be coming to an end. “Until then, I think you should brush up on your dancing.”

Her mother swept to the floor, filled with praise for the way that Matilda had picked up the dance, giving her a few hints, and then taking her fathers hands and declaring that she must have the next. Wednesday thought that it was all a little dramatic, but she was glad to not be on the floor herself. Perhaps she and Matilda could sneak away while they were dancing. They might never notice.

“I can’t believe you don’t like doing that." Matilda said, still beaming. 

“You’re flushed.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Of course I am, you should know it’s not that easy to keep up. But if you have to do that every Saturday count me in.” She blushed then, looking away from Wednesday. “I mean of course I wouldn’t want to intrude or-”

“My family like you, and if it means I don’t have to dance all the time so much the better, Wormwood.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” 

Wednesday raised an eyebrow, preparing a retort, but halted it when she saw the familiar flash of hurt behind the eyes. Something that had reared it’s head once before. 

“Do you prefer Matilda?”

“Not really, but I don’t have any other name and it’s better than Wormwood.”

“I’m not calling you Honey.”

Matilda laughed, and it gave Wednesday a small measure of relief. It was the laugh, and a knowing glance from her mother that gave her the idea.

“What about Artemisia?”

“That literally means Wormwood, Wednesday.”

“It’s more interesting.”

“Greek?”

“Should I be surprised that you know that?”

“I read a book on ancient languages at the library once. I had started running out of the interesting titles. Though it turns out that etymology is actually very useful, so I came out better for it.”

Wednesday had perfected, over many years, a very good poker face. But she was struggling not to look as surprised as she felt.

“Are you telling me that you read through so many of the books at the library that you resorted to reference books?”

“There wasn’t much else where I lived. There’s almost nothing in the town, really. And I wasn’t able to come here on my own then.”

Wednesday nodded, and then realised that she had nothing else to say. She rarely had much to say anyway, but her mind was racing and it couldn’t slow down enough to form a proper sentence. She was rescued from needing to.

“Artemisia _is_ an interesting name. I think, if it’s only you, I will accept it for now. But I reserve the right to go back to being Matilda at any moment.”

“Deal.”

Wednesday held out her hand to be shaken. And just like that, she realised, she had made a friend.


	10. Matilda

M: I think I just saw your brother.

W: Which one?

M: The one that I haven’t met. He looks just like Fester but with hair.

W: That’s probably him. Where was he?

M: little way out of town. I was on a bus heading back for home and he was just wandering along the road with a girl. I think his hands were tied?

W: That will be one of the Valks. He’s courting, one of them. I will let mother know.

Matilda looked at her phone. Even the way that Wednesday sent messages was matter of fact, but there was something in that that she quite liked. She felt like she knew where she was with Wednesday, which was more than could be said for most other people she knew their age. In the couple of weeks that they had been friends it had been as though they had known one another for far longer, and though it puzzled her she wasn’t about to pull away from it.

She was just picking her book back up as her phone buzzed in her pocket. 

W: Thank you, Artemisia.

That was unexpected, but it made her smile all the same. She couldn’t work out why Wednesday disliked her name, but Artemisia definitely sounded more...Addams. It was a connection to her family that didn’t make her feel so terrible, too. The more she rolled it around her mouth the more she liked it. It was strange in a way that suited her. In a way that Matilda never really had.

Perhaps that was why Wednesday disliked it. 

Perhaps Wednesday knew, as she had known for years, that a Matilda was the name for a bundle of scraps. Of course if you took the German it meant might, but she had never been able to find comfort in that when it also denoted something worthless.

But Artemisia was intoxication and poison and power. 

She got off the bus and trudged the short walk to home, smiling as she saw the garden that was slowly starting to bloom, breathing in the scent of honeysuckle that had long marked the holidays of her childhood. Spring had hit at home, and it had made the outside of the house a sea of flowers. 

W: Do you know what direction they were going in?

Matilda looked at her phone. Wednesday hadn’t seemed too worried about the whereabouts of her brother, but her messages felt heavy somehow, as though there was fear driving them. He had been out of the house for over a week, she supposed, but she hadn’t realised that it was unusual. 

M: Towards the village about twelve miles from town. They didn’t look in a hurry.

W: Okay. 

Jenny was waiting for her at the door, pulling her into a hug and breathing deeply.

“I missed you yesterday. I know you can’t come home every weekend but it’s so quiet here without anyone around.”

“Sorry, I just wanted to-”

“I know, I know, spend time with a friend. I wouldn’t ask you to do otherwise. I suppose I’m going to have to get used to being in this big old place on my own a bit more.”

“You could always, you know,” Matilda shrugged, “find someone to share it with you?”

Jenny laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. Matilda had suggested it several times while growing up, that it wasn’t fair that Jenny had put aside all of what could have been her life because suddenly there was a child in it. In hindsight it had all been very rushed and when she had suggested that she be adopted away from the Wormwoods she hadn’t known how much that could change a person.

But the answer she received was always the same. 

“You know the only man I needed was my Dad, and I’m more than happy to keep on that way.”

Matilda nodded. 

“I guess it’s time to make lunch?”

She busied herself with cooking, falling into the routine that had made up every Sunday for as much of her life as she could really remember. So settled were they that they moved around each other without needing to check, without misstepping. It was a well oiled machine. 

W: Sorry, I have another question.

M: I haven’t seen them since.

W: That wasn’t my question.

M: He didn’t look in pain. 

W: Will you let me ask?

Matilda smiled at her phone. 

“Who’s that?”

“Oh, it’s Wednesday. I saw her brother on the way here, I think she just wants to check up on him.”

W: Were there two sisters, or just one?

M: I only saw one.

W: That doesn’t mean that they weren’t both there. 

M: Well if one of them was hiding in the shadows I didn’t notice.

W: Okay.

“Seems like you’re getting along well?”

Matilda tried to hide the light blush that rose to her cheeks. They were getting on well and she didn’t know why but it felt like the easiest friendship she had ever had. Even Lavender had stopped really talking to her when she moved up several grades at once. She was always too young, too strange, too...something. But Wednesday was different. 

“She’s nice. The family are friendly too. Did I tell you that her Dad is teaching me to Tango? He says I’m not as much of a natural as his wife but that for a beginner I’m charming.”

“The Tango?” Jenny looked puzzled. “Not many people dance like that anymore.”

Matilda shrugged.

“He dances with Morticia all the time.”

“Wednesday is an odd name though. There’s that old poem-”

“Yes, I have tried not to mention it. I’m sure she’s heard it all before with a name like that. But they embrace it, being slightly different.”

She didn’t mention that Wednesday had decided her name was too…something. That she had given her a name of her own that fitted so well with the feel of the Addams manor. She didn’t tell Jenny a lot of things, but that had been the case more and more as she grew up. When she was a child Jenny was everything she had ever wanted, but getting older meant realising that she wanted more. She hadn’t realised how much until recently. 

W: Did he look okay?

M: I mean, he seemed happier than anyone I’ve ever seen in handcuffs.

W: He wasn’t hurt?

M: Not visibly. I don’t mean to pry, this is clearly family business, but why on earth is it so important?

W: It will take too long to explain in messages. Come over when you get back?

M: Sure. Tomorrow after classes?

W: See you then. 

“I’m very glad that you have found friends, Matilda. But you know the rules at the dinner table.”

It was as stern as Jenny ever got, but she felt ashamed all the same. She had never broken any rules, not even the stupid ones about not using her powers to do things because she was too lazy to do them herself. Though she did use them to do the dishes once in a while. Nobody wanted to touch wet, day old beans. 

“Sorry.”

She slipped her phone away, almost disappointed that for the rest of the weekend it didn’t buzz once.


	11. Wednesday

Wednesday couldn’t stop pacing. Some nights it helped her think, but even walking under the full moon she was restless. Something was wrong. Everything pointed to nothing being wrong but she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that.

The Valks had to be up to something.

She was hopeful that Matilda might be able to help. There was something hidden about her too. Something lurking in her that Wednesday couldn’t quite work out. It was in the name, that much she was sure of, but she had looked through all of the archives and she couldn’t find a Wormwood family in their clans. Still, it didn’t mean that there wasn’t one. A lot of the old families had all but vanished. Their names though, and that strange intensity about them, remained. 

If Matilda was from one of the old families she would need to be careful, but she trusted her more than she had anyone from outside of the Addams’ so that had to count for something. Her gut was never wrong.

Which is why Pugsley was worrying her so much. She was close to her brother, being twins did that to you even if you didn’t want it to. She knew, somewhere inside her, that something was happening. No matter what her mother and her grandmama thought. 

A: I’m just getting off the bus now. See you soon.

Wednesday looked at the message, then checked the time and looked again. She was a day early. They had agreed Monday. 

She hurried into the house to warn her mother, unexpected company was always a risk.

“Mother, Artemisia is coming over for the evening.”

“Who dear?”

Wednesday winced. She wasn’t usually so foolish as to slip, though at least her mother already knew…something. She wasn’t sure _what_ her mother knew, but she always knew so it didn’t bear fruit to hide anything from her. 

“Wormwood,” she said, trying to maintain as much composure as possible. 

“Ah, Brilliant. Will she be staying?”

“I don’t know. But she was just getting off the-”

A strangled yelping from the front of the house interrupted them and Wednesday took off at a run. 

“Lurch!” It was rude to bellow, but she found herself not caring too much. “Lurch to the front!”

He was already there, opening the door to reveal Matilda, standing several feet away from the door, holding up the mace that she and Pugsley had rigged to fall on those who rang the bell after midnight. 

“You know,” she panted. “Security cameras are far more effective. Could someone take this? It’s getting heavy.”

“It should be,” Wednesday said, surprised. “It was forged for a man larger than Lurch. But you seem to be-”

“Stronger than I look.”

Wednesday crossed her arms and frowned. 

“Strong enough to lift something that we have to have Lurch use series of pulleys to get it up there? Are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure that I don’t want to talk about it out here, if it’s all the same.”

Wednesday stepped aside and watched as her guest handed the mace to Lurch as though it weighed nothing at all. Lurch heaved and hauled it back up and into the contraption that she had made to take it to the roof. 

“I don’t understand why you’re a day early,” she said as soon as the door is closed.

“It just seemed as though, perhaps, you needed an extra pair of hands to, you know, whatever this is with your brother.”

“Are you going to tell me about the mace?” Wednesday asked.

“Will you ask me to leave if I don’t?”

“No,” Wednesday said, “but it doesn’t stop me from being interested.”

“How about we tackle one mystery at a time, and I tell you for now that I don’t have any kind of super strength and that I think it was being held up a little by the chain.”

“You don’t believe that.” Wednesday could see her mother beaming behind them but she was doing her best not to notice the very knowing look on her face. 

“I don’t, and you don’t either, but I think that it might have to do for now, especially as there are other things to worry about?”

She was going to argue but her mother swept over to them as the door closed, ever the gleaming host even in the middle of the night. 

“Yes, I’m sure that now you’re here Wednesday will worry less about our dear Pugsley. Shall I make you ladies a drink of something? I’m sure Grandmama could whip something up.”

“Mother, there is something the matter. I have a reason to worry about what’s happening to-”

For the second time that evening there was a yelp as the mace fell.

“Now who on earth could that be?”

“Nobody welcome,” Wednesday muttered. She turned to her guest, still frowning. “Perhaps you should take a couple of steps towards the drawing room. This could be anything.”

“I can look after myself, as I think you’ve seen.”

“I’ll arrange you a lovely funeral.”

She watched as Matilda smiled, then stepped alongside Wednesday and Morticia to face the door.

“When you’re ready, Lurch,” Morticia urged. 

The door swung open and they all held their breath for a moment, but there was nobody there. The mace swung limply above the stoop.

“That’s strange,” Wednesday muttered.

“Maybe Lurch didn’t get it all the way up there?”

“He always does. There has to be a reason for it to fall.”

Wednesday crept towards the doorway, wishing for her crossbow, or even a knife. She settled for taking an umbrella out of the stand by the door and holding it ahead of her like she used to in fencing practice.

“Be careful.” 

It was only a whisper but it boosted her a little. She peered out of the door, listening to the breeze play past the manor. There was no other sound, which in itself was very suspicious. There was usually at least the sound of some experiment that her grandmama had let loose in the grounds. But there was nothing but the playing of leaves. 

She stepped out, leaning behind the door and rolled her eyes. It was, perhaps, the most cliche thing she’d ever seen. 

“It’s fine,” she called back to the waiting house. “Someone has just decided to embed a message into our door. With a knife.”

“I wonder if it’s from family?” Morticia called back. 

“Unlikely.” She tucked the umbrella under her arm and braced a leg against the door to pull out the knife. It didn’t give much resistance. “No Addams has so weak a throw.”

She flicked her eyes over the piece of paper.

_Your brother is ours. The Addams’ will fall. Seek him if you dare._

“Well, that’s decidedly ominous in a way that is entirely boring. Has nobody taught the Valks how to send a menacing note? It’s embarrassing to think that Pugsley was stupid enough to fall for it.”

“So,” Matilda was looking slightly anxious behind her. “Does that mean he’s in danger or just that they want you to think he is?”


	12. Matilda

Wednesday was pacing, and it was starting to make Matilda dizzy. They had gone back outside, even though it was approaching three in the morning, even though they both probably needed sleep, it was obvious that there was no way that they were going to get any soon.

“Will it help to tell me about your brother?”

“Well he’s very stupid, though that should be obvious,” Wednesday sighed. “He’s been taken in by the most embarrassing clan in our network. They’re a monotonous level of evil if you ask me, never doing anything new or interesting.”

“Is there an interesting level of evil?”

“Oh of course. We don’t tend to get involved with that too much anymore, but there are certainly better families than the Valks.” 

Matilda was tempted to grab hold of Wednesday and force her to be still, but she wasn’t sure how well that would go for either of them. 

“Other than being bad at being evil, is there anything that might draw Pugsley to them? Something that might make him want to not be with the family?”

Wednesday huffed, and then shrugged before flopping down on the bench next to her. 

“Well the sisters could be considered alarmingly beautiful, and their family holds quite a lot of influence so I suppose that could be a draw. Plus, well, you have seen my brother. He takes after our uncle and that doesn’t tend to lend itself to normal female attention. I think this is some of the first.”

“So he’s enjoying it.”

“Without thinking about motive.”

Matilda stifled a yawn and pulled her jacket closer around herself. It was spring but still chilly in the evenings. 

“Look,” she said, trying to think of anything that might help. “If he’s anything like the rest of you, from what I’ve seen anyway, surely he can take care of himself. You don’t exactly seem like the kind of family to whom regular dangers pose much of a threat.” She smiled. “I mean if you were kidnapped I would be more worried about the poor soul who thought that they could get away with keeping you against your will.”

That drew a rare, small smile from Wednesday’s lips. 

“Well, of course that would be why the sisters haven’t come for me. For one no matter how attractive they might be-”

She stopped, and in the moonlight Matilda was sure that she saw a moment of blush rise into the cool pale cheeks. 

“Either way I would have outsmarted them.”

They sat for a while in silence, Matilda looking up at the moon and wondering how she had ended up in the strange world of the Addams family. It struck her that she didn’t mind a bit. 

“I think,” she said, standing up and stretching, “that it would do us both some good to get some sleep. Not in the least because I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you in direct sunlight and I’m worried that you might combust if the light hits you.”

That was enough to turn the wry smile into a snort, that Wednesday promptly looked very embarrassed about. 

“I do think that he’s going to be okay, and that he will probably come home at some point all full of teenage love and a small measure of pride that anyone was worried about him. And when the Valks get nothing from you then they will lose interest in him and then you’ll get your brother back. I’ve read about it hundreds of times in all kinds of books. These things never last for long.”

“What books were those?”

“Mills and Boon. You would be amazed how quickly you run out of interesting things to read in the local library.”

“They sound awful.”

Matilda shrugged.

“They were better than the alternatives.”

“I am going to ask you about that at some point.”

“About what?”

It was Matilda’s turn to blush. Wednesday was fixing her with such an intense gaze that she was struggling to meet it. It was different to the other times that they had met eyes, there was something heavier in it, something unsaid but definitely pressing on them both. 

She felt hot and cold all at once, and when she did look away she cursed that she was not as pale or immune to the rising blush as Wednesday was. It must have been so obvious. What was wrong with her?

“About you.” Wednesday said, finally filling the silence. 

“There isn’t much to tell.” Matilda mumbled.

Of course that was a lie and she knew it, but compared to the mysteries of the Addams’ she wasn’t sure how it would be possible for her story to compare. She didn’t want to be dull to Wednesday, but short of exposing the only interesting thing about her she didn’t know that the truth of her life would be anything else. She was Matilda. Plain, normal Matilda. Good at Maths, quick when it came to learning just about anything. But bland.

Except, Wednesday didn’t look at her as though she was bland. 

“We both know that that isn’t true, but I will allow it. An Addams is taught never to believe that they are more or less than what they are. In time I imagine it’s a lesson that you will learn. If you are to spend more time with us, that is.”

Matilda looked up at the moon, steadily slipping away. She wasn't sure how to answer. 

“But I think you’re right about sleep. Though I’m not certain that either of us will make it into classes tomorrow at this rate.”

“I think I can afford to miss one.”

“Likely.”

“Wednesday,” Matilda tried not to look as awkward as she felt. “On account of having come straight from home, I don’t have any clean clothes or anything to sleep in or even a toothbrush. I’m sure I could head back if-”

Wednesday waved her worries away with a pale hand. 

“We keep all kinds of things here. I’m certain that we will have something that will fit you. There might even be something…colourful.”

“I’m happy with black. Or grey. Or any other colour that you have to hand. I would just be grateful not to have to sleep in the same clothes I arrived in.”

“It can all be arranged. In fact, knowing my mother it already has been.”

And it had. There was a bed made up in Wednesday’s room with clean pyjamas (in black) folded on the pillow (also black). There was even a comb and a toothbrush with them. It was like arriving into the most macabre hotel room she had ever seen. 

“Well, it looks like you’re staying with me for the evening. It’s just as well, sometimes Grandmama leaves her projects in the guest rooms. You can never be too sure what you might find in them.”

“This will be perfect, I’m sure.” Matilda smiled. She hadn’t really looked around Wednesday’s room the last time she had been in there, on account of spider wrangling. It was plainer than she had expected, a simple bed with some books on a shelf. The usual wardrobe and drawers, and a framed painting on the wall of a women cloaked in flames. 

“My Great Aunt Calpurnia. She makes such a lovely portrait.”

“She looks...Warm.”

“You would think so, but the joy of burning a real witch is that the flames don’t really do much. Not if they know what they’re doing. Of course that _further_ convinced the people that she had made a pact with the devil, but they were too afraid to try to murder her a second time.”__

_ __ _

_ __ _

“Oh.”

“I can only aspire to such things.”

Matilda smiled. 

“Where should I change?”

Wednesday indicated to a small door in the corner of the room, which led to a neat little en suite bathroom. It was, as she had begun to expect, decorated in shades of black. A single dried bloom from the rose garden was in a vase on the sink.

The pyjamas fit surprisingly well, and were softer on her skin than any that she had owned. She smiled at herself in the mirror, letting her hair fall out of the band and slightly into her face that way that it always did when left to it’s own devices. 

When she emerged from the bathroom Wednesday had changed into a nightgown that was almost identical to the dress that she wore during the day and she was brushing through her hair. Matilda hadn’t seen it out of the braids, she doubted that anyone ever had. It was longer than she had expected and falling in waves from being woven all day. It was stunning. 

“You should wear it like that sometimes,” she said, getting into bed. “It looks very pretty.”

“Pretty but impractical,” Wednesday said, beginning to re-braid the lengths. “I have worn it like this for so long that I can’t grow used to anything else.”

“Fair.”

Matilda knew all to well about that. She had been teased for the bands that she wore to keep her hair out of her face, and for the ribbons before that, but it was the thing that worked. 

“Well, unless you are one of these people who wants to talk all night rather than sleep at a sleepover-”

“Wednesday we already have talked all night. The sun is definitely coming up now.”

“You make a good point. What I meant was, I am going to go to sleep. It is my hope that you can do the same.”

Matilda yawned, rolling onto her side to face Wednesday, who was laying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. 

“Goodnight, Wednesday.”

“Goodnight, Artemisia.”


	13. Wednesday

Wednesday slept fitfully, her dreams filled with torturous deeds carried out by hands that were not her own. Her brother in their old electric chair, but with someone else at the power switch. Her brother tied to railway tracks with someone else laughing at the side. Her brother wearing one of the many contraptions that she dreamed up, but never with her there.

That wasn’t how it should be. They were Addams’ which meant they stuck together. Family first, always. Why wasn’t be doing that? What could possibly have changed the way that they had been taught? It was Debbie all over again. Fester at least had the good sense to pick a woman who was truly, admirable evil. It took true villainy to put an Addams in pastels. 

What it came down to, was that nobody was allowed to kidnap her brother but her. 

“Artemisia, are you awake?”

She looked over to see that her roommate for the night was still sleeping, though as restlessly as she had. She looked smaller, sleeping, just like any other girl. But Wednesday was wasn’t going to let that fool her. She knew what she felt from her new found friend, and were it not for the impending doom of her brother she would have been putting far more energy into investigating what was going on with the strange girl with a name that carried so much weight.

“Artemisia?” she whispered slightly louder.

“I was trying to not be awake,” Matilda mumbled, “but it seems that you have other ideas for us. What time is it?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not important. What’s important is that I am still sure that my brother is in trouble.”

“Okay.”

“And that note from the Valk sisters was very suspicious, don’t you think?”

“I think they wanted it to be suspicious.I also think that we haven’t slept for more than three hours and that’s not generally something that makes me very pleasant to be around. I’m sure your brother can survive for a few more hours while we get a proper amount of rest.”

Wednesday watched as Matilda rolled over, and pulled the covers right up over her head. She was right, of course, they hadn’t slept anywhere near enough for her to formulate a proper plan. Her mind was racing but it was racing around in circles. But how could she sleep knowing that Pugsley was out there somewhere, in their hands, not able to do much of anything useful to get himself out of danger. 

She swung her legs out of bed, walked silently passed where Matilda was sleeping. She might be too tired to plan, but she couldn’t just lay there. She needed to do something, anything. Perhaps Lurch would be happy to spar with her a while. At least it would give her something to focus on.


	14. Wednesday

“Artemisia, you have slept for a further four hours. I have now devised a plan, I did this while you were asleep.”

Matilda rolled over, rubbing her eyes, and stared at Wednesday. Her expression was a mixture of puzzlement and frustration but she propped herself up on her elbows.

“I’m listening.”

“It is clear to me that my brother is not going to get himself out of this mess. So I am going to go after him. I am certain that with a little bit of investigation I will be able to find the location of the Valk residence, then all I need to do is go on, get Pugsley, and leave with him.”

“And you think, considering the note that they left, they are going to let you take him?”

Wednesday considered the question for a moment. 

“I think that I am more than equipped to take him regardless.”

“On your own?”

“That is the easiest way, I believe, to be able to sneak in. I might see if Mother will allow me to take The Thing, he is very good at getting into small places.”

She frowned suddenly. 

“Thinking of it, I don’t know that I have seen him since yesterday. I wonder if he has already been sent to look into things. I know that Itt is involved too, or at least he will be.”

“Itt?”

“He’s our cousin. You would know him if you had met him, he’s not someone that you quickly forget. He does a lot of work with the other clans so he is usually more able to find out information than the rest of us. People just like him.”

“I see. So he might be going to seek your brother as well?”

Wednesday shook her head. 

“No it would be far too dangerous for him to do such a thing, it would risk the careful position that he holds. But he might pass some information back that will allow me to do what I need to do to be able to get Pugsley.”

She watched as Matilda sat up fully, took one of the spiders that seemed to have taken residence at the head of her bed out of her hair and let it wander from her fingers onto the wall, then looked back at her. 

“I think, before you plan too much more, it might be worth having some breakfast and seeing what your parents have to say on the matter. You never know, Pugsley might even be home by now.”

Wednesday conceded that breakfast at least was a good idea. She had been too engrossed in her thoughts to eat much at dinner the night before and it was catching up with her. It wouldn’t do to begin a war on an empty stomach, that much she knew. And knowing the way that the Valk family did business, a war was definitely on the cards. 

Pugsley was not in fact at breakfast. Nor was her father, and nor was The Thing. The first she had expected, the second two were very suspicious. Even grandmama was being quiet. Something was wrong. 

“Mother, please would you enlighten me as to why everybody is behaving as though somebody had failed to die?”

Her mother looked up from the toast that she had been picking at and Wednesday moved from frustration to worry.

“What’s happened.”

“I’m afraid there was another note, dear, last evening. It appears that the Valk sisters are very insistent that Pugsley should stay with them, and that of course that would mean that our families would be joined and as such they should have rights to several things that currently rest with us. Rituals that the Addams’ have been responsible for for centuries, that sort of thing. Your father has gone to see if he can reason with them, after all a union among the families could be a very positive thing, but the way that they are drawing up such arrangements. It is best left for him to deal with. Your father has known the Valks for many years. He will iron it out.”

Wednesday turned to look around the table. Everyone was looking down at their food, not making eye contact with her. Even Pubert was quiet. 

“We don’t need an alliance. We need to get my brother back,” she said.


	15. Matilda

“Surely your father will be able to deal with all of this,” Matilda said, watching once again as Wednesday paced around the garden. “If he has gone to talk to them then it’s settled. You don’t need to worry anymore.”

“My father is a wonderful man,” Wednesday huffed, “but he is a romantic not a tactician. The Valk family are known for being deceptive. There is no way that we can trust what they say.”

“Then you’re going to have to trust that your father knows that. Aren’t you?”

She wanted to find something, anything, that might help. She knew what it felt like to want to intervene, to know that something needed to be done but to not be completely sure what. She had been there, once. She had walked into a fight that she wasn’t sure that she could win and it was only her powers that got her out of it. Her powers and a whole lot of luck, anyway. 

She kicked away a vine that was, for the third time, trying to wind it’s way around her leg, giving it an extra nudge with her mind to push it back further than before. It seemed quite persistent for a plant. 

“If it all goes south,” she said, “something tells me that all of you together are a force to be reckoned with. Your mother said that they wanted access to things that belonged to you, and that the union would give them that, but surely it wouldn’t have to?”

“It could,” Wednesday said, kicking at the same vine as it crept back towards them. “There is a contract drawn up when an alliance is formed between clans, and they are binding forever. If it was not very cleverly written by our side then it could change things for us forever. Many families would never dream of touching the power that another had held for so long, we all have something that is ours after all, but the Valks are not like other families.”

“If they are so terrible, surely Pugsley can just be talked out of it?”

Wednesday snorted. 

“If he had half a mind perhaps, but I’ve said before that I don’t think he is thinking with his main brain right now. My brother, my dear idiot brother, is one of the most malleable of us all.”

Matilda looked back at the house, at the huge walls that spread out around them enclosing the garden. There was so much might just in the building, it was reflected by the family, by the way that they carried themselves, the way that they spoke, the way that they moved around the world. It was easy to see, with all that they had been raised with, why Wednesday was frustrated with her brother. If she had everything that Wednesday had grown up with she wasn’t sure that she would have ever wanted to leave. But then, she wouldn’t have known any different so perhaps that wouldn’t have been the case.

She wondered, as she had before, if she should tell Wednesday the truth about her. About the abilities that she had been hiding for almost all of her life. It seemed that it might be a small comfort, but perhaps not at the right time. Soon, though, she decided. The next time that Wednesday asked. 

“If you’re set on going after them, then we’re going to need some information.” She smiled at Wednesday. “Now that at least is something that I’m good at. Do you have anything about them in the library?”

“We have records of almost all of the clans in there, but it would take us days-”

“It would take you days. I might be able to do things just a little faster.” She wasn’t sure what confidence possessed her but she found herself standing up and winking at Wednesday. “Or have you forgotten that I read the entire collection of books in my local library before I was a teenager?”


	16. Wednesday

Watching Matilda read was like watching her parents dance. Fascinating, but a little unsettling at the same time. It wasn’t that she was fast, it was the way that she absorbed the information and translated it onto a page without stopping reading. It was the way that she scanned through book after book after book finding any shred of information.

It was all she could do to keep up with getting books from the shelves for her to consume. 

By lunch time Matilda had worked her way through a good half of the archived journals and entries about the old families, finding things that even Wednesday didn’t know, snippets of information and family trees and references to events that she had only ever heard rumours of. There was more than most people could ever know about their ancestors with a lifetime of study, and it struck Wednesday that Matilda was likely to have learned the majority of it in an afternoon. 

“If you don’t slow down I’m going to run out of books.” She said, pilling another load on the table.

“If you run out of books then we can always turn to the internet. I’m sure there’s all kinds of information there about the clans if you know where to look.”

Matilda smiled at her. 

“If you don’t feel like keeping going I’m more than happy to just walk down into the town and get a coffee, maybe some pancakes. We could take an afternoon and let your father-”

Wednesday held up a hand. 

“I know what you goading me looks like, and I will not fall for it. There is work to be done here and I am more than happy to continue, I was just not quite expecting it to go this quickly.”

“If I work fast,” Matilda said, still making notes as she talked, “then you will have more time to formulate plan. I am assuming, of course, that you are the master planner here which leaves me to just be the brain.”

Wednesday nodded, and with the lack of anything else to do she picked up the notes that had already been made and started going through them. 

Some of the information she already knew, the names of the majority of the family of Valk, the places that they had lived through the years and the various professions that they had held as recorded by the clans. But there were snippets next to every name that struck her as far more interesting. Who had feuded with whom, which of them had married into which families, who had been struck from family records and which had died far sooner than expected.

In those little notes, she was certain, there would be a clue to getting though the door, and to finding where the family currently resided, for the location of the Valk manner was hidden from all of the other clans following the last big series of fights. They had, of course, been the family who had started them so it seemed appropriate that they were the target for a lot of the backlash. The Addams’, according to their own records at any rate, had been instrumental in solving a great deal of the crises that followed. 

Wednesday wondered if that had anything to do with the kidnapping. A revenge plot, of sorts, against a family who had been working against them. 

“Artemisia, you are a genius,” she muttered looking through accounts of the various frictions between clans. “You’ve put it all together without even knowing it.”

“What do you mean?” Matilda had stopped writing and was frowning at Wednesday, a book in one hand, another spread out in front of her, and her pen poised half way trough a word. 

“Every account here of the Valk family includes some reference to the Addams’ putting a stop to something that they were doing. Be it with the help of another family or alone, every time they are referenced as having caused or created some kind of problem we are there, stopping them from going too far. As far as as the records go.”

“But there are several other families who were also there for most of it, I don’t know that it could be said that it was just your family.”

“Perhaps not, but we might be the closest ones that they can take vengeance on first. It makes sense,” Wednesday started making notes of her own. “If my family had been foiled and deflected from every plot for the last two centuries I might be looking at methods of extracting my revenge too. And I would start with the ones that were easiest to infiltrate.”

Wednesday started looking eagerly thought the rest of the notes, reading the brief snippets that had been puled together. 

“So where does that leave us? Other than having a possible motive which, if we’re being honest, we didn’t need.”

“Well,” Wednesday said. “I think it leaves us with finding out where they have hidden their manor.” She looked down only to remember that the last person to see Pugsley and one of the twins was in the room with her. 

“Where was it that you saw them, again?”

From various accounts through the years of the kinds of houses they preferred, the location that Matilda had seen them in and some general educated guesswork they managed to narrow down the location of the Valk manor to a couple of miles surrounding the village that Matilda had grown up in. It was a large area to cover, but there couldn’t be that many large enough houses there, and they reasoned that with whatever information Itt could provide they might be able to narrow it down a bit more. 

“So all that’s left is getting there, and getting in.” Matilda said, closing the notebook and rubbing her eyes. “I’m starving.”

“I’m sure I can find something edible for us in the kitchens. I wonder if my father has returned, it would be unusual for him to be away for so long for something so simple as a conversation.”

“Wednesday.” Matilda was stretching out her hand, and Wednesday looked hurriedly away as she leaned back to stretch out her arms and back. “Is it possible that your father has gone to the manor to have this conversation? Surely that would mean he would know where it is?”

Wednesday shook her head, still not daring to look back up. When Pugsley was rescued and she had some time to think she was going to have to put some time to working out why she felt so strange when she looked at Matilda for too long. There wasn’t time, though, to consider what her mother had said to her, to take stock of why she suddenly wanted to spend so much time around someone who for all she knew was from an ancient opposing clan who had been sent there to spy on them. She had taken none of the usual precautions, done nothing that the family would consider normal in ensuring that Matilda was safe. She has just trusted her from the first moment, and she had not the first idea why. But there wasn’t time to work it out. She was just going to have to keep it under control for a while longer.

“They would meet somewhere neutral, somewhere that wasn’t going to pose a risk to either of them. I don’t think one would trust the other enough to host them. There are many people that my father would welcome here, but I do not believe the patriarch of the Valk family is one of them.”

“Do you think,” Matilda has finished her stretching and had gone back to leafing through the notes, “that your father might have had the foresight to send The Thing to follow whoever he was meeting home, once it was all over?”

Wednesday felt a wry smile crossing her lips. 

“You know, I hadn’t thought of it, but that would be a very Addams sort of thing to do.”


	17. Matilda

Gomez returned after dinner had finished, and when Matilda was considering making a move back to her flat. She had borrowed clothes from various of the old wardrobes in the manor and was surprisingly comfortable but she was looking forward to wearing something that she was a little less worried about spilling something on. It seemed that Morticia favoured silk and velvet and while it made for very extravagant day wear it was, Matilda imagined, a nightmare to wash. 

But as she was reading to announce all this the door swung open and Wednesday’s father strode through it, looking tired and slightly less enthusiastic than was normal. 

“It appears,” he announced to the room in general as he strode in, “that our son has decided that he supports whatever decision the Valks make.” 

Somewhere behind Matilda she heard Morticia gasp. 

“Furthermore, he believes that once he is married he should be able to move in here with his new bride and begin preparations for taking over the house once I am Grandmama’s age.”

Gomez sagged, and Matilda watched as Morticia hurried to him, wrapping her arms around him in a manner that would have been distinctly suggestive in any other situation. 

“Oh Gomez, what shall we do?”

Wednesday cleared her throat.

“We go and get him back.”

The promise of her own clothes abandoned, Matilda followed Wednesday to the armoury. They were running on fumes and she needed to talk at least a small measure of sense into her friend before they embarked on a journey that was entirely too much for two young women to take on. 

“You are welcome to head back for home,” Wednesday said. “You have been an enormous help but I think now is the time for something a little harder hitting than books.”

“Lucky for you I am a little harder hitting than books.” Matilda said, suddenly annoyed. “And I’m going with you.”

“Don’t be foolish. You aren’t even a child of one of the clans.” 

“What does that matter, I’m your friend and that’s enough. If you want to help your brother then I’m not going to let you run into who knows what alone. I read all of those books remember, I know what kinds of things the Valks do. They make some of your devises look playful. There is no way that I’m letting you go in there without a little backup.”

“That’s not your decision.” Wednesday said, simply. She pulled open the door to the armoury and looked around before striding in the direction of the sword stands. “This is family business.”

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t need help.”

“They would harm you, Artemisia.” Wednesday’s voice was smaller. “I can’t protect you and my brother.”

“And what makes you think,” Matilda said, pulling her power together all at once, “that you would need to protect me at all?”

She focused, and spread her powers outward, pulling weapons off the wall and bringing them towards her, standing the suit of Armour to attention and calling it to salute. She breathed deeply, drawing as much as she had ever dared before fixing Wednesday with a hard stare.

“Tell me again that I’m not strong enough.”

She watched as Wednesday turned slowly, assessed the room and then broke into a wide, terrifying smile. 

“So this is what you’ve been hiding. Impressive, I have to say. Perhaps you are a child of one of the clans after all. Though that is a conversation that we are going to have to have later. What I need to know now, before you really make this decision, is whether or not you think you could use this ability of yours to harm another person. Because it may well come to that. The Valks relish in suffering in a way that, as you have said yourself, makes my studies look childish.”

“If I need to defend myself or my friends then so be it.” 

The weight was starting to strain Matilda, and she slowly replaced the majority of the things that she had been holding. It had been more of a display than she had intended, but she had been so frustrated that it had been easy to call up enough ability. She hadn’t felt that strong since she was a child, contending with her parents. Since she had needed to take back Jenny’s home. 

“I’ve done it before.” She said, simply. “I can do it again.”

Of course, she had never caused real harm, but she was good at using her powers to ensure that she didn’t have to. That was part of it, knowing how to use them. How to block and distract and confuse.

“So we’re agreed. I’m coming with you.”

She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“It looks,” Wednesday said, still smiling, “like you might not be the only one.”

Matilda turned to where she was pointing and saw The Thing, tapping on the armoury window, frantically waving for one of them to open it so that he could be let in. 

She flicked open the latch from where she stood, and had to smirk a little as Wednesday turned once more to look at her, seeming to be at least a little impressed at the second display. Unfortunately for Matilda, she had no ability to interpret the rapid motions that made up the communication of The Thing. She knew that he was saying something, and could make out the odd word here or there, but she wasn’t a patch on Wednesday who seemed to be having a complete and detailed conversation with him. 

“So what’s the verdict?”

“He knows where to go, we were pretty close. It’s going to be tough, but he can take us.”

“We need to sleep first.” Matilda said. “I know you want to go now, but we can’t do this tired. If we are tired we can’t think. We sleep now, get up before the dawn, and then we go.”

Wednesday nodded. 

“Pick whichever weapon you think you can use. I’ll find you some better clothes.”


	18. Wednesday

Wednesday woke long before the break of dawn, and woke Matilda not long after. The Thing had stayed in there with them, largely entertained by Matilda while Wednesday prepared. He had been very pleased to see her again, and Wednesday wondered if he had felt in her what she had. That strange, tingling power that she had now seen first hand. It was impressive, even her mother didn’t have such control over solid objects. She was immediately fascinated by what Matilda might be able to do, but there was no time for that either. 

“Water?”

“Check.”

“Snacks?”

“Check.”

“Protective clothing?”

“I don’t think I need it, but check.”

“Weaponry.”

Matilda held up the little belt of throwing knives and darts compiled from several different sections of the armoury.

“Double check.”

“Thing,” she said, turning her attention to The Thing, who was sitting on Matilda’s shoulder holding a mock salute. “You know where we’re going.”

He did. They were ready to go. 

“Let’s go get my brother back.”


	19. Matilda

The Thing drove. 

It was one of the more horrifying experiences of Matilda’s life. She sat, clinging to the back seats with knuckles that were more than white by the time they arrived, hoping that they would survive the trip. For a time she distracted herself by wondering how on earth he was able to control a vehicle, but with every swerve she just felt a little more nauseated and though it best just to close her eyes and hope that they survived. 

Since meeting The Thing she had wondered how he went through life, whether or not he was really alive, if he could see. She had never thought to ask, can he drive? 

Wednesday, on the other hand, looked about as calm as ever as they were flung around corners and tore down streets that had still not quite been touched by the light of the morning. She sat, looking over their notes as though reading in a vehicle that swerved and bounced wasn’t enough to make her regret her small breakfast, and Matilda was further horrified to hear that she was humming as they went. 

When they finally came to a stop, slamming to a halt that jerked her forwards a good half a foot before the seatbelt caught her she released the sides of the seat and, trembling, got slowly out of the car. 

“On the way home,” she panted, “I’m driving.”

“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Wednesday said, stepping smoothly out of the vehicle, “Thing is very safe when it comes to using the roads. Aren’t you, Thing?”

A tapping on the wheel indicated his agreement, but Matilda could only shake her head and try to catch her breath. “I still don’t quite understand how he can be controlling the direction and applying pressure to the gas.”

“It’s really best not to think about it.” Wednesday said. “There’s a lot more to Thing that meets the eye.”

“Evidently.”

She leaned into the car and held out her hand to Thing. 

“Thank you for the lift, Thing.”

“Artemisia, this is your last chance to turn back.”

“Not a chance, Addams.”


	20. Wednesday

Wednesday looked at the house and frowned. The entire building was dark. Entrance lights, windows, everything. There wasn’t a speck of light to be seen and that was worrying to her. It shouted trap. Of course if she was one of the Valk family she would be expecting something like this. She would be ready for someone to come to claim what was theirs. 

But it didn’t feel quite right. Taps were clever, traps that had been set well didn’t make you think that you were walking into a trap. So what were the Valk family planning. 

She turned to Thing, leaning in through the window of the car next to Matilda.

“Thing, when you were here did you look around the house? Did you wait for them to go back inside?”

Thing signalled that he did. 

“And they definitely went in, you’re certain.”

He was.

But the house didn’t look as though anyone was home. 

It would make sense, perhaps, for them to be sleeping. It would be reasonable to assume that at that time of day they might not be awake, but if her own home was anything to go by, someone was always awake. There are times of day when it is better to work on things, times of day when the quiet allows for best research to be completed, times of day for sword work and for drills and for walking before the world really woke. A true manor was never sleeping. 

“Did you see a manservant? A butler? Anyone?”

He hadn’t. Just the man that had met with her father, going into the house and closing the door.

“And were there lights on, then?”

He didn’t know.

“Wednesday, what are you thinking?”

“It’s too dark, too closed off. If they want us to think that this is going to be easy, well it seems like this is what they would do. Make it look like the house is sleeping, like it will be a simple matter of sneaking in. I don’t trust it, I don’t trust them.”

“Good. We don’t need to trust them. We just need to outsmart them. Or is that not your plan anymore?”

Wednesday looked back at the house. There were several points where they might be able to get in easily. But with the house the way it was she half thought that it might be wroth just going and knocking on the front door. That, at least, they might not be expecting. 

“I just have the feeling that we are being had.”

“Then let them think that they are having us,” Matilda said, grinning, “and just keep one step ahead.”


	21. Matilda

Matilda looked at the house, taking as long a look as she dared, assessing every detail. It was smaller than the Addams’ manor, but not by much. Huge walls of old red brick towered over her, with a wrought iron fence surrounding the property, telling anyone from the outside that they were definitely not welcome. There were spikes on the fence, and it looked as though the creeping, thorned vines that Morticia favoured for her garden were there as well, writhing gently against the mental, waiting.

“That,” she said, “is going to be a problem.”

There were more of them than cultivated in the Addams’ gardens, and their thorns were long and hooked. As she approached she was sure that she could hear a faint hissing coming from somewhere within them, and they were rising up on the other side of the fence to meet her. 

“How are we planning to get past those? I didn’t exactly pack weedkiller, and something tells me that if that’s what they have on the fences, what they have inside of them is going to be far nastier.”

Wednesday frowned, picking at the edge of one of her fingers while she thought. 

“Let’s walk around the building as far as we can, it might be that they don’t go all the way around. If there is a gap or our thin spot that might be our best bet.”

“And if they follow us around?” Matilda took several steps to the right, watching as the vines slithered after her before stepping back towards Wednesday. “I don’t think that I have enough strength to hold them all back, not if anything else ends up coming for us.”

“One thing at a time. Let’s just see what we’re working with.”

What they were working with, it turned out, was a fully sentient garden. She had read stories about triffids, most people had at one stage or another, but she had never expected to actually see them. But there, through the fences, she saw plants easily taller than Lurch, with wide maws and sharpened teeth. They were unmoving, but when she floated a pebble towards them, flinging it as it reached the end of her range, all of the heads followed the sound. Even if there was nothing else, those were going to be a problem. Even if they could get through the vines.

“I’m going to try something,” Wednesday whispered, slipping out of her boots. “Just, stay there and stay still.”

She watched in puzzled silence as Wednesday crept, stepping without making a single sound around the fences. Matilda had to hold her breath as Wednesday reached towards the vines, still keeping her steps entirely hidden. There was no movement, no reaction, nothing that would suggest that they were anything other than regular thorny bushes. 

“That’s it,” she whispered. “They can’t see her.”

Wednesday turned and nodded to her. That dealt with some of it at least. 

“But I can’t do that,” Matilda whispered, “they will hear me for sure.”

Wednesday cocked an eyebrow at her.

“I watch you move over a tonne of metal in the armoury yesterday without a single hesitation, and you’re telling me you can’t do the same thing with your own body?”

“It’s never worked, I can never maintain focus.”

“Well if you make too much noise you might get eaten. That should be enough to motivate you.”

Matilda shivered. Fear, anger, pain. They had always been things that had made her powers flare. They were the things that had shown her she could be strong in the first place. But she didn’t think that her life had ever been so seriously at risk. 

“Just, be as silent as you can. Even if you are only millimetres off the ground, that’s all you need.”

She nodded, following Wednesday back to the large gate at the front. It stood open, inviting them to the foolishness that was walking straight in. 

“So, front door?” Wednesday said. “It feels like that’s the last thing they would expect us to do.”

Matilda nodded. “Even if they are expecting us, we’ll be ready.”

She breathed deep, pushing her mind back to the fights, the shouts, the stifling fear of the chokey. She drew on the anger, the shame, the loneliness and channelled it all down. She didn’t weigh much, it should be easy. All she had to do was lift. 

A hand on hers jerked her back into the real world.

“I think that will be high enough.”

She looked down to see Wednesday suddenly a foot shorter than her. 

“Oh.”

“And you said it had never worked. Come on.”

She followed the lead that she was being given, lowering back down to the ground so that her toes were a mere inch above the grass. Her instinct was to continue to try and step, but there was no need. She was concentrating hard enough that she was certain she was going to have a headache later on, but it was working. She was flying. 

When they reached the front door, her breath still held in her chest, she felt the strange wrongness that Wednesday had mentioned. The front door was ajar, not by much, but enough that it made it seem as though they were being invited in.

She let herself touch down, hoping that nothing in the gardens had heard them, and reached out to still Wednesday as she reached forward to the door. 

Let me she mouthed.

Wednesday nodded and she extended her powers again, pushing the door open while they were still a few steps away and sweeping into the room looking for anything that might be waiting. Her power blew through like a wind, lifting dust and rattling windows, but there was no response from inside the house. She looked at Wednesday and, though no less worried, nodded for them to proceed.


	22. Wednesday

Wednesday crept forward, her crossbow held tightly ahead of her. She was ready for anything that the Valks might have prepared. With silent steps she slipped through the door, pressing herself to the wall to the right of the door as Matilda did the same on her left. They stood waiting, silence pressing down on them, but there was nothing more. 

“What are you planning?” She muttered, looking around. 

She looked at Matilda, who was shrugging at her. If there was a trap waiting for them, perhaps it wasn’t in the entry way. 

Wednesday wracked her mind for an idea, any idea. What would she do if she was setting traps for someone? How would she catch someone who was as smart as she was?

“I think,” she whispered as loud as she dared, “that there is going to be some kind of trap waiting somewhere else. To make us think that it’s safe.”

“So what do we do?” 

“Keep going, but slowly.”

They carried on, checking every step, looking around corners, with Matilda opening doors ahead of them. They both spent a lot of time trying not to make any sound, trying not to even breathe heavily, and keeping their eyes open. 

But there was nothing for them to see. 

Every room was another disappointment and Wednesday was growing more and more agitated and less cautious. 

“All the information that we have says that they should be here, the house was well protected enough that it makes sense that this would be it, but we have looked in almost every room and there’s just nothing!”

She slumped onto the floor, fuming. 

“The more we look around the more sure I am that there’s nothing but dirt in this house. But why would they be coming this way? Why would they have come back here after having met with my father? Why would it be so protected if it wasn’t the right house?”

“Are you sure that they use this part? There could be some secret leading somewhere else?”

Wednesday raised a quizzical eyebrow at Matilda as she took her own seat on the floor. 

“You think that they have some secret tunnel that leads to something underground? Or to another part of the town? I don’t know that even my family could hide that kind of infrastructure.”

“But you said yourself that each family has specialisms. What if this is theirs? Neither of us actually know what the sisters are good at. There was no information that either of us could find and probably for good reason. Would you have it widely known what your mother was able to do with some simple herbs?”

“Well no,” Wednesday huffed. “But you might be right. Does this mean that we need to look for secret passages?”

“It’s as good an idea as anything else. We aren’t making any progress with just sneaking from room to room like we might find them huddled in a corner. Listen to the house Wednesday, you and I both know that it’s empty. You can feel it in the building itself. The most living thing here, other than us, are those vines in the garden. All that’s happening is that we’re getting tired, you’re getting grouchy, and I’m bored of trying to keep the dust out of my hair.”

“I am not getting grouchy.”

“You are.”

“Artemisia I am the least grouchy person I know.”

Wednesday tried to keep her face still and stern, but Matilda was giggling and there was something infectious about it. She didn’t smile often, as a rule, but in the dim, empty room the sound of Matilda laughing was echoing around her she couldn’t help it. 

“Alright,” she said once they had fallen back into the still quiet. “Let’s look for secret passages.”


	23. Matilda

Matilda didn’t have the first clue what the entrance to a secret passage would look like. In books there were always bookshelves with a book that was secretly a lever. Or there would be fireplaces with a candlestick that she could pull on to rotate the whole thing and allow them to pass. But there wasn’t a single item of furniture in any room that they came to. There were no lamps sitting in strange places, no floorboards that were obviously looser than the others, no stairs that weren’t solid and strong. 

“I think,” she said as they checked the main staircase for the third time, “that we might need to start looking somewhere else.”

“If I had created secret tunnels then I would make them near other entrances or exists,” Wednesday said, tapping at the stone pillar next to the stairs. “Because then I wouldn’t have to go too far from one to the other if I didn’t want to be seen.”

Matilda smiled. Wednesday had the kind of mind that worked almost entirely on logic and reason, with just a little bit of stubbornness thrown in. She had an idea about what she wanted to be the truth and she made it happen. It was endearing but Matilda wondered if it made things more difficult than they needed to be. 

“So how about this,” she said, trying to find a solution that wouldn’t suggest to Wednesday that she was doing everything wrong. “You keep looking here, and I will go back through the rooms and see if anything else moves if I push on it with things other than hands and feet?”

“You want to split up.”

She didn’t. If she was honest Matilda just wanted to get out of the house. It was creepy, not because it was empty but because of the way that it was empty. Houses, in her experience, at least showed signs of life. This manor felt dead, all the way through. She wanted to just shake it off, forget about their ‘mission’ if she could call it that and then go back to the Addams house for an evening of anything other than searching through dusty old rooms for something that may or may not be there. But it was important to Wednesday, and though she didn’t really know why that meant it was important to her as well. So she nodded.

“If nothing else it will be faster, and we have searched every room for traps so if you can’t find them then I’m pretty sure that they aren’t there.”

“I don’t know that it will be safe. What if that’s what they’re waiting for?”

“Then I can shout and you can run to the rescue with your crossbow.”

“Okay,” Wednesday looked thoughtful. “As long as you think that you can hold whatever might come at you off until I get there.”

“I managed at your house, didn’t I?”

Though she was as confident as she could be, there was real concern in Wednesday’s face that made her feel like there might be something more to be afraid of than she knew. The families were older than any she had read about, and if her knowledge of history was anything to go by, that meant they would have more secrets than most families too. 

“I’ll be careful,” she said, hoping that the tiny spark of fear that was growing in her chest didn’t show. 

As she wandered the empty house, pushing her powers out and looking for anything that they might be able to hold on to, she thought about the Valks. They were certainly mysterious, but they didn’t seem influential or powerful or even that important from the information that the Addams’ held on them. So why have an ancient house with nothing in it? Why take the time to leave enough evidence to lead someone to that house if you don’t have anything that you want to gain from it? People didn’t just vanish, as a rule, without any trace of where they went. 

She drifted into the kitchen, which stood about as bare as the rest of the house. There were no plates, no pans, nothing that would suggest that a family had ever been there. She had half expected to at least see something in what would usually be the busiest room in a house. But there seemed to be nothing to see. 

It was the sheer scale of the barrenness of the house that interested her. If it had been full of furniature and abandoned it would almost be less suspicious. If there had been anything left in the house she could have believed that they had gone into hiding for whatever reason. Instead what she and Wednesday were finding was a systematic emptying of every room.

People didn’t just vanish. They were hiding something, somewhere, and the more she wandered the halls the more Matilda wanted to know what that something was.


	24. Wednesday

“I think what we need to do,” Wednesday said the moment she saw Matilda walk back into the room, “is set some traps of our own. They must think that they’re really very smart, setting us up like this, leading us to the wrong place. But they will come back to see if we were here, they have to. Otherwise there would be no point in all of this. So we set our own traps, and we leave them a message.” She drew herself up, trying to embody the height and pride of her father. “One does not simply scorn an Addams.”

“And if they don’t come back and this was all just designed to waste our time?”

“They’ll come back.” Wednesday said. That much she was very confident of. “There is nothing like seeing the evidence of winning even a small battle. And that is what this is. They have won this round, for now. But they won’t win the war.”

She looked at Matilda, who seemed to be trying not to laugh, and deflated a little. 

“This is a very serious matter you know.”

“It’s a little bit funny, if you think about it,” Matilda replied. “We’ve been meandering about in a dusty old house for hours. That dress was black when you came in, and look at my hair! And all we know is that they’re not here.”

Wednesday frowned down at her dress. She was filthy, and not in the usual way. The dust seemed to have ground itself into the fabric and brushing it only made matters worse. 

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t look so stern about it,” Matilda went on. “And I know that this is very important to you and I will keep at it for as long as you want but you have to see the funny side of it, at least a little. If they wanted us to waste time while they made it further away that’s exactly what we’ve done. There weren’t traps to find here, the whole place was a trap to keep us away from something else, and to make it better now we look ridiculous.”

She seemed close to hysterical and Wednesday wondered if she should shake her. But she had made a very, very good point. 

“Hang on. The whole house is a trap?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. They are hiding something, I agree,” Wednesday watched as she took a few breaths, regaining some measure of calm. “But whatever they are trying to keep from, well the world I suppose, it isn’t in this house. I don’t thin they have ever lived here, it’s just too empty. You can feel people in a house, even once they’ve gone. This just feels like shell.”

“So what do we do now?” 

Wednesday looked at the crossbow in her hands. She had secretly hoped to really be able to use it, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself when she was outside of the testing range. She felt stupid, falling for something so simple as a diversion. She had been certain that they would be there, that there would be some sign or evidence of them in the house. It would have been too easy, of course. 

“I think it’s worth looking around the garden if we can, there were some odd buildings down the end that-”

“You mean with all of the man eating plants?”

“Well,” Matilda shrugged. “Unless you have a better idea? It’s the only place that we haven’t looked.”

“It’s also the only place that is obviously filled with things that don’t want us to be there.”

She watched Matilda’s face break into an eager smile.

“I wonder what they would make of that crossbow.”


	25. Matilda

The garden proved less of a challenge than Matilda had expected, and she had to admit that she was a little disappointed. The house had been one thing, it was a clever trap for someone too eager to find something, but she had thought that sentient, malevolent plants might have been at least a little interesting.

But in reality, they were weaker than they seemed and easy to hold off. 

The grounds were impressive all the same, huge spans of bramble and creeping thorny vines wove around the border, creating a prickly fence for anyone wanting to come in or out, and large, deep red flowers dotted the scrubby grass. There were odd, dark plants everywhere in a wild tangle, but very little else. 

“All this has me thinking,” she said to Wednesday, kicking aside a vine that was trying to creep around her ankle. “What on earth could the Valks want with Pugsley really? A combining of the families and a sharing of the influence that you wield is one thing, but is there something deeper here?”

Wednesday frowned.

“Like what?”

“The way I see it,” Matilda said, avoiding a patch of plants that looked alarmingly like night-nettles. “If they wanted to integrate themselves with you and the Addams’ and everything that being a part of that means all they would have to do is arrange a civil marriage. Surely it would work in their favour more than kidnapping? But they put in their note that you would fall? What does that mean? What do you have to fall from?”

It was one of those questions that there was never an answer to, but it had to be asked. It was possible, of course, that the entire affair was motivated by spite but she didn’t think so. It was too measured for that. Too clever. If they had wanted to harm the family they would have done so. But they seemed to want to split them, to confuse them. 

“We hold more influence than a lot of the old families,” Wednesday shrugged, “and we are largely more liked than the Valks. All of the clans hide things, it’s in our nature. And our histories record more than one scrap for those secrets over the years. But I don’t know what they could want with him.”

Matilda watched Wednesday’s face harden. 

“He’s not the smartest of the Addams’ children. Nor the bravest. Nor the quickest. He’s just, Pugsley.”

“Maybe there’s more to him than you know,” Matilda said.

“Maybe.”


	26. Wednesday

There was a small outbuilding at the back of the gardens, so far buried by the brambles and vines that it had been almost impossible to see. But there it was, a snippet of wall here, a beam there, and finally with a lot of stepping around thorns so long Wednesday could have used them to pin up her hair, she found a door. 

“Here, you were right Artemisia.”

“You sound surprised. I’m _often_ right, Wednesday.”

Wednesday rolled her eyes. 

“Do you think you can…” she wasn’t sure how to describe what Matilda could do, and there had been no time to ask her mother about it. She settled for gesturing at the vines until Matilda nodded. 

“I should be able to hold them apart for a moment, but we will have to move pretty quickly. It’s always together with things that are alive. They resist.”

Wednesday nodded. 

She watched as Matilda closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, then extended her hands and started to push. There was obvious resistance in the space between them and the effort was clear on her face. She was reddening and breathing heavily.

“Are you going,” she panted, “to get the door?”

Wednesday span around and saw that the door was just clear enough to open, but the vines were heaving against the barrier holding them back, and she was certain that she could hear hissing coming from them.

“Quickly, Wednesday!”

She slung the crossbow onto her back and grabbed the door, pulling it with all of the strength that she had. It didn’t move, and the hissing was getting louder. 

“Hold on!” she called over her shoulder, hearing the rumble of one of the larger plants getting nearer. She had seen some very toothy looking tulips at the back of the house, with heads larger than her fists. She hoped that they hadn’t developed the ability to move too or they would be in big trouble. 

With a few quick calculations she found what she hoped would be the weakest point in the hinges of the door and jammed the butt of her bow into it, pushing with all her might and trying not to look at the enormous vine that was straining towards her eyes against Matilda’s powers.

“Wednesday…”

The voice was weaker than even a moment before, trembling. 

She lashed out at the door again, all thought of stealth out of her mind. If there was nothing behind that door she was more than prepared to tear the whole place apart. 

“Wednesday…my ankle.”

She span around to see a thin, snakelike creeper winding it’s way around Matilda’s ankle and up her leg. The thorns were biting into her skin, leaving red streaks stark against the pale of her shin. 

“Get away from her,” she growled, pulling out a small dagger and lurching forward. She slashed at the deep green flesh, hacking at it with little finesse and a lot of rage. Those marks were her fault, her doing. If there was poison in the plant…it didn’t bear thinking about. The body of the creeper slithered back, but the grip no Matilda’s leg was no less. With the blade clenched in her teeth she worked to pull what remained free with her hands, avoiding the thorns as best she could, trying not to make the cuts any deeper than they were. 

She felt the surge of power fall, and heard the vines behind her drop back over the door but she didn’t care. Her blood was pounding in her temples and there was a fire in her chest as she looked at the myriad of small cuts. Her fault. They were all her fault. With a final tug she pulled the thorny branch free and threw it as hard as she could across the garden. She spat the knife onto the floor and her hands found Matilda’s face, her eyes searching.

“Are you okay? Does it burn? Can you feel anything there still?”

Matilda shook her head and Wednesday let her own drop, stilling her breathing. 

“Wednesday?” There was a new shaking in the voice. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”

She took another moment before lifting her eyes to meet Matilda’s, shame still burning inside her. She knew the clans, she knew the world that they were walking into and she had neglected the person that she had dragged along with her, the only friend that she had, the only one who had ever made her think that maybe…she shook herself. It wasn’t the time. She drew her hands back from Matilda’s cheeks, feeling immediately cold from the loss of that warmth. 

“Maybe we try the old fashioned way?” she suggested, picking up her dagger. 

“Or a little of both? I hold, you cut and then we try to get the door open. Maybe if it’s free I could, well I don’t know if it would work.” Matilda rubbed her shoulders, her breathing returning to normal. 

“If what would work?”

“I think, that if I knew what I was doing, I could use the power inside a lock to make it open, though I don’t know how to pick a lock and I don’t know if I could be that specific with it or if it’s even possible. I-” She looked down at her feet, the tips of her ears reddening. “I have never practiced with it much, I was warned not to use it, to rely on it, to make it stronger in case. Well.”

“In case it got too strong for you. Overtook you.” Wednesday knew the fear, she had read enough of the histories of her family to know what happened to those with ability who let it grow too strong. There was a reason that witches sometimes really were caught and burned. The power was intoxicating. 

Matilda nodded. 

“Let’s give this another go though?”

Matilda stilled the vines once more, but there they had been, and she went to hacking. It was long, difficult work and she knew that if anyone had been hiding within the building that they would have ample chance to prepare, or to escape. It was almost pointless, but they couldn’t stop. Not when it seemed like the only chance for information that they would get. 

Finally she stepped back and gave Matilda the nod. She dropped the vines, the remaining stumps hissing and pulling back on themselves. The door was left free, at least for a moment. 

All they had to do was work out how to get inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!
> 
> I have been advised that authors notes are a thing that I should be using. So here we are!
> 
> I just want to say thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and commenting on this little work. It makes my day when I see a comment pop in and know that someone out there is enjoying this as much as I have.
> 
> The first draft of the whole thing is now complete! NaNoWriMo did me a bit of a service and we have around 75,000 words written, so strap yourselves in! It's going to be a long ride.
> 
> With love and words
> 
> Kat


	27. Matilda

“Here goes nothing,” Matilda muttered, crouching in front of the door and focusing on the lock. 

She had never done anything like it, never even thought that it might be possible. She was strong, she knew that, and she had more power in her than she had ever dreamed, but she had never used it to do anything more complicated than apply makeup. This was, different. It took dexterity and skill and more than a little knowledge of locks. She had none of those things. She tried everything that she could think of, feeling her way around every part of the inside of the lock. But no matter what she clicked and moved she had no idea how to make it open, and the vines were creeping closer again. 

“Anything?” Wednesday sounded a little nervous, and Matilda couldn’t say that she was surprised. With every moment that passed her brother could be further from them, and though she had little affection for her own brother she wondered, if she knew for sure that he was in some danger, if she would do the same. 

“Not yet,” she muttered still trying to work out what her powers were latching on to. 

After another tense 30 seconds she huffed and drew back. 

“This is ridiculous, I can’t see what I’m doing and I don’t know how to pick a lock. You alright if I try to make a little noise?”

Wednesday frowned, but nodded slowly. 

Matilda took a few long breaths. There was more power in her than even she knew, that much was certain. She had gone from moving pieces of cereal across a coffee table to being able to hold up enormous weights at the last second. She knew that she was strong, stronger than any girl her age had ever been in all likelihood. All she had to do was focus.

She pressed her power into the door. Feeling the hinges, the lock, testing for parts that bent and flexed. There would be a weak point. Somewhere behind her Wednesday was slashing at a vine, but she sounded a very long way away. 

Finally, just for a moment, she felt something give, and she threw everything that she had at that one point. She pushed and heaved at it, her vision clouding as her pulse beat a furious rhythm in her temples. There was nothing but her and that one point. Nothing but her and the power that seemed to be surging through her from the air itself.

The door was creaking, barely holding on against the wave that she was channeling into it. 

Someone was talking behind her, but she couldn’t hear the words, she couldn’t hear anything at all. Finally, with a jolt that sent her buckling forwards the door gave and she dropped to her knees. Sweating, exhausted, she turned to smile at Wednesday who was standing open mouthed. 

“That was unusual,” she said, pulling one of her braids back over her shoulder and fiddling with the end. “At some point I’m going to have to ask you about this, power of yours.”

“At some point,” Matilda panted, nodding. “But let’s just keep looking for now.”

They took slow steps into the building, looking around for any sign of people, and finally, it seemed that they had found something. 

“Wednesday…” Matilda hardly dared to speak.She was staring at the far wall of the shack that they had entered, desperately trying to think of a reason for it’s contents.

“Are those?”

“I think so.”

“But?”

Wednesday seemed lost for words too. Not wanting to get too close, Matilda extended her power, and lifted one of the offending items toward them. 

“Wednesday,” she said, staring at it as it drew closer. “It’s you.”

Wednesday shook her head. 

“Not just me, there are others. Look at them. It’s all of us.”

Matilda took a few steps closer, and shuddered as she saw that Wednesday was right. There were photographs secured all over the wall, of them. Of the Addams’ in various locations, of the university, of Lurch carrying a stack of books back to the house. And at one end, there were two that featured Matilda. A large question mark had been drawn over her face but there was no mistaking that it was her. 

“What is this?” she whispered, staring at the strange wall. “

“I don’t know,” Wednesday said, the smallest shudder of fear in her voice. “But I intend to find out.”


	28. Wednesday

Wednesday looked around the room again. It seemed that it was just a single shack, but there was no way that somewhere with so much security around it, so much strength in the rickety looking door, was just a potting shed. She had seen, in her own family buildings, rooms like the one she and Matilda were standing in. Unassuming, bland, the perfect place to hide something that you wouldn’t want anyone else to stumble upon. 

While Matilda stared at the pictures that had been nailed to the back wall, she set to looking for anything that might be out of place, anything that hid a door, a passage, a staircase. Anything. She felt a strange, desperate tugging in her chest. The Valks had been following them, it was more obvious than ever, and they had taken Pugsley without any struggle or fuss. They knew too much.

“Artemisia,” she whispered, hardly daring to breathe. “There’s something here. I can feel it.”

Matilda turned, nodded, and closed her eyes. Wednesday resisted the urge to stand and watch the strange extension of power. The breaking of the door had been impressive to say the least, the way that the vines had shrunk from the enormous force that Matilda had wielded. The way that the air had picked up around her, pulling at their clothes. The strange, tingling that Wednesday felt if she got too close. It would be enough to strike fear and awe into even some of her more powerful cousins. She felt once again the power extend past her, testing the floor, the walls. 

She turned and did her best to search as well. Picking up stray plant pots, tapping on stones, sliding the workbench around just in case. She was just picking up a large shovel in the hopes that it might be somehow connected to a lever when she heard a quiet click over her left shoulder followed by a swift, familiar whoosh. She turned, eyes wide just in time to see a gleaming black dart hovering an inch away from her face. Her eyes flicked to Matilda who had a hand extended and a panicked look in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said, letting the dart sink into Wednesday’s open hand. “I triggered, something.”

“If there are traps, there’s information. We’re getting close.” Wednesday said. 

They set to searching more carefully, and several more dart traps later Wednesday spotted a strange plank in the back corner of the shack. 

She waved at Matilda, not wanting to make any unnecessary sound, then pointed at the plank.

_I think_ she mouthed _that there’s something under there._

Matilda nodded, stepping lightly towards the corner. 

Wednesday leveled her crossbow at it. 

_On three._

Matilda held up three fingers, counting silently down as Wednesday kept her bow trained.

As the count came to zero Matilda pressed on the plank, sending it sliding backwards to reveal a dark, narrow passage leading down. 

_I’ll go first?_

Wednesday’s heart was racing. There was no sound coming from the passage, no breeze, nothing to suggest that it was any more than a cellar. 

She stepped lightly towards it, masking the sound of her steps as best as she could in the silence. As she reached the opening a warm hand on her shoulder stopped her, making her jump.

“Should we leave something here?” Matilda whispered. “In case they come back?”

“Like what?”

Matilda pointed at one of the traps that they had found and avoided, shrugging. 

“Maybe you can do something with one of those?”

Wednesday grinned. She was sure that she could.

It took a little while, and the more time passed the more her hands seemed to refuse her. But eventually, she had disconnected, moved and reconnected one of the little dart traps so that it was pointing directly at the entrance to the passage.

“The only problem,” she whispered to Matilda as they closed the door behind them, “is that if we come through here first someone is going to have to be very, very fast.”

“I think I can manage.”

Wednesday nodded. Though they had known each other for a relatively short space of time, Wednesday trusted Matilda more than she did members of her own family. Though, with the people who she had grown up with, that wasn’t all too surprising. Still, she wasn’t sure she would ever get used to the feeling.


	29. Matilda

Matilda tried to be as quiet as Wednesday, but there was no point. Walking alongside her was like walking next to a ghost. No matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t match the smooth even glide that rendered Wednesday silent. 

The passage went on and on, steadily further down until she could smell the moisture from the earth beyond the stone, feel the damp clinging to the walls. As it grew darker and darker an old, half forgotten fear set in. Her legs started to shake as she remembered the confined, terrible inside of the chokey. It had taken years for the nightmares of that place to subside, for her to be able to walk through small corridors and collect things from cupboards without her hands trembling, but now, as they carried deeper into the dark she found it all came rushing back. 

“Wednesday,” she whispered, past embarrassment at the fear in her voice. “I can’t…” she swallowed. Her tongue felt thick, her mouth dry. “I can’t see.”

She didn’t hear a reply, instead a hand reached back, finding her shoulder, then her arm, and finally slid down until it met her clammy fingers.

“Just follow me. I can see. We’re safe for now.” Came a whisper from the black space ahead.

As Matilda let her fingers slide between Wednesday’s all thought of the darkness vanished for a moment. Wednesday was not icy cold as she had expected, but pleasantly cool even in the close conditions. Her fingers were long and slender, her skin incredibly soft. Though her heart had been beating madly before Matilda worried that it might stop as she was met with a gentle squeeze and a tug forward. 

Never, in all of her life, had someone taken her hand. 

Grounded by the touch, with a few deep breaths to combat the heavy heat that was rising up in her face, she followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short chapter! 
> 
> There are a few of these dotted through, one of them is really teeny, but I hope that you enjoy the building suspense that comes with them. Let me know in the comments. Do we like these micro-doses? Or do we want longer sections?
> 
> Always excited to hear what you guys think!
> 
> I also just want to say a huge thank you to the 50 of you who have bookmarked this story! It's more than I ever imagined would. 
> 
> With love and words
> 
> Kat x


	30. Wednesday

Wednesday’s mind was screaming at her.

_What am I doing? Why didn’t I just say something? Is she going to be angry? She’s so warm. Pull yourself together Addams!_

And then, over and over again. 

_She hasn’t pulled away._

She felt hot and cold all at once, a strange twisting of elation and dread in her chest and her heart pounding out a rhythm fast enough that her parents could have danced one hell of a tango to it’s beat. 

If anything went wrong, she knew, they would be in no position to defend themselves. Creeping along in the dark, each of them now with a hand out of use. Her crossbow held low at her side. But she wasn’t about to let go. 

Is this what she had wanted all along? The feel of smooth, warm skin on her own. The slight shaking and the intermittent squeeze as Matilda battled whatever fear it was that kept her fingers locked tight with Wednesday’s was like some kind of drug. Wednesday felt dizzy, sick, and like she might burst out laughing at any moment. 

Her mother had known, and somewhere she had known. 

Now the realisation had punched her in the gut and she had no idea what she was going to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!
> 
> I just wanted to pop in to thank you all for over 1500 reads. That's HUGE and I am both amazed and slightly scared that people have come to spend time with my story so many times.
> 
> On that, I have taken a leap and updated my bio with some info about other places you can find me on the great wide internet. If you're interested in cosplay adventures or some of the other things I have written then please feel free to have a look, I would love to see you guys around.
> 
> I'm thinking about putting some of my original fiction up on here in the new year, would people be interested in that at all?
> 
> I feel like I'm probably saying thank you too much, but just in case I'm not. Thank you, all.
> 
> With love and words
> 
> Kat x


	31. Matilda

Finally, after walking for so long that Matilda thought she might never see the light again, the descent ended and they were standing at the entrance of another small room. There were doorways on either side, and Matilda could see the flicker of a candle, or possibly a torch, behind them both. 

She stopped, eyes darting from one light to the other. Wednesday was trying to tell her something, but it was so dark that she couldn’t even see the movement of her lips. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone and lit up the screen just enough to see the pale outline of Wednesday’s face. 

Matilda shook her head. She had been in the silence for so long she was starting to forget what things sounded like, and she was certain that any noise would be deafening in the still cavern. 

_Left or right?_

She shrugged, lost. They seemed to be mirrors of one another, exactly the same place, exactly the same flickering of light. 

The more she looked, in fact, the more certain she was of their nature. They were identical, the doors. A mirror image. She tugged on Wednesday’s hand, shining the light from her phone on her own face.

_I think they’re the same_ she mouthed. _Literally the same. Is that possible?_

Wednesday frowned, then scowled. She started to shake her head but seemed to change her mind half way through, turning the motion into a half shake half nod shrugging motion. For a time they just stood there, hands still clasped, looking at one another until the light of Matilda’s phone went out and they were plunged back into darkness.

They had come this far, but what to do next was a mystery. They hadn’t planned for any of it, for anything other than walking straight into the house and finding someone to question. It was clear to Matilda that they had been outsmarted but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that Wednesday seemed so close to her, that her hand seemed cool despite the warmth of the room, that there had been something in her eyes more than fear. 

“Can you tell which one is real?” The whisper was so quiet Matilda wasn’t sure that she had heard it at all, but she nodded and turned to face the doors. They were further from her than she would like, and it would take a lot to reach either one of them. More than she had in her, in all likelihood. She was going to have to get closer. 

Her steps rang in the silence, and she bitterly wished that she had the silent glide that Wednesday made look so easy. All she could do was step slowly and hope. 

As she got closer she realised that she wasn’t going to need to use her powers at all. There were voices, whispers behind the door and what she had thought was the flickering of candle light seemed in fact to be someone pacing back and forth inside the room. She turned and beckoned Wednesday toward her, certain that they were only moments away from being discovered by whoever was behind that door. 

_I think it’s this one._

She pointed to the door, not daring to speak the words.

Wednesday pulled her crossbow to sit level with the door, a bolt already loaded. With a single nod she turned all of her focus to whatever they were going to find behind the door. 

With a few breaths to steady herself, Matilda extended her power and pushed on the door with as much force as she dared,

Light flared into the cavern and Matilda had to shield her eyes with her arm it was so bright. There was a shout from somewhere inside and she heard the low thump of Wednesday’s crossbow but still she couldn’t see. Having been in the dark for so long she was blinded, and it was only the shout from Wednesday that had her surging forward. 

There were more shouts, heavy steps from people running away, or at least she hoped that it was away.

“Matilda, look out!”

She threw her hands up instinctively, pushing all of her power away from her in the hopes that it would stop whatever Wednesday was trying to warn her about. 

Sight returned slowly, and she was stumbling forward down a corridor, a series of arrows held by her power floating in front of her. She had to smile, the practice from long years of catching things that her brother had thrown at her, that school children had thrown at her, seemed to be paying off. 

In the distance she heard Wednesday running shouting, but there weer other voices, and more steps than she could make out. She was rushing deeper into this place, seeing rooms and tunnels passing her as she went and the second jolt of familiar horror struck her as she heard steps suddenly not in front but behind, and a deep bellow that took her back many years, to running through halls and down stairs chased by an unseen danger. She had thought then that if she had been caught she would be killed. This time, though, she was almost certain that she would be held, and broken, and used as leverage against her only friend. 

But she was braver now than she had been then, and she was stronger. She stopped dead, swivelling around pulling the arrows with her. 

There was a man, short and stout and looking remarkably like her own father baring down on her and shouting. 

“That’s better little girl, just stay there and play nice and we’ll send you back to whichever clan claims you.” 

She didn’t like the way that he was smiling, or the long curved knife at his side that his fingers were twitching towards.

“I’m not a little girl,” she said, rotating the arrows so that the points were facing him not her. “And I am certainly not nice.”

The power surged, the arrows flew, and before she could stop and think about what she had done there was another shout from Wednesday that sent her heart into her mouth. Without seeing if the man was going to follow, she turned on her heels and ran.


	32. Wednesday

The Valk family certainly knew how to get to her. There were taunts and laughs as she sprinted down the halls after a swinging blonde ponytail. 

“Come back here!” She shouted, fumbling to load another bolt into her crossbow without losing speed. Somewhere behind her there were more shouts, more footsteps, the banging of doors and the clattering of things being thrown, but she couldn’t let any of that distract her. In front of her was one of the sisters, she didn’t know which one and she didn’t care. 

“Wednesday really,” the girl laughed, almost skipping ahead, “you think that you can best me on my own ground. You really are as foolish as your idiot brother.”

She didn’t waste the energy in speech, they were coming to quieter passages, darker ones. She was being led into some kind of trap and though she knew it she couldn’t stop herself. Perhaps this girl was leading her to her brother. Perhaps she was leading her to her doom. 

A thought in the back of her mind pulled her focus, causing her to stumble for a step before righting herself. There were no footsteps behind her now, which meant that Matilda wasn’t following. Or at the least wasn’t keeping up. She had left her behind, surrounded by who knows what, and there had been so many turns on the way that she barely knew the way out now. There was no way that anyone was going to catch up to her. If the Valks had planned to separate the pair, then they had succeeded.

“Shit.”

There was a cackle from the girl ahead, who seemed to be slowing down. 

“Realised your mistake?” She said, a gleeful ringing in her voice. “She’s an interesting little thing, the girl you brought with you. I’m just certain that someone will pay a fine price for her. Which clan is she, do you think? Or did you not ask before dragging her in.”

Wednesday clenched her jaw, finally getting the bolt seated. 

“Your people won’t lay a hand on her,” she growled.

“Is that what you think? Well, we shall see. I can’t imagine that she could be as pathetic as she-”

TWANG.

“Bitch!”

Wednesday smiled, stepping slowly towards the girl now. Loading another bolt with practised calm. 

“You won’t lay a hand on her,” she said again, levelling the bolt until it was nearly touching the pale, clammy forehead of the girl who now crouched on the floor, clutching her leg. “Now, as you seem to just love the sound of your own voice, why don’t you tell me a little something about my brother.”


	33. Matilda

Matilda ran until she was certain that her lungs were going to come right out of her mouth. She ran past shouting people down corridors that all looked the same, deflecting everything that came into her path in a kind of daze. She had, for a while, been able to follow Wednesday’s angry shouts, but they had died away and in the steadily darkening passageways there were too many voices echoing around her to be able to make out anything. 

“Wednesday!” 

It was a risk to shout, she knew that much. For one thing it would pull people towards her, but for another it might distract Wednesday and put her in some kind of danger too. But she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She was alone, and it was getting darker, and all of the things that used to haunt her at night were bubbling back to the surface with a sickening rapidity. Ghosts of a past that she thought she had left behind seemed to creep around every turn, clawing at her as she tried to keep calm.

Somewhere, far ahead of her, someone shrieked. A high, awful cry of pain. She had never heard anything like it but it dug into her bones and pulled her onward.

Wednesday was in trouble. Whether that sound had come from her or she had caused it to come from someone else, she was in trouble. You didn’t do anything that would draw that kind of sound from someone without changing. Without becoming something else. 

“Hang in there Wednesday,” she shouted, hoping that she could find her way to the shout in time.

She rounded corner after corner until finally skidding to a halt as she nearly collided with a darkly dressed figure with two stern braids standing over a smirking blonde with a bolt wedged just below her knee. 

“Wednesday?” she whispered, hardly daring to speak. “Wednesday are you okay?”


	34. Wednesday

“Artemisia,” she murmured, “you shouldn’t see this.”

She raised her foot and pressed on the bolt shaft once more, extracting another scream from the Valk girl. 

“Where is my brother?”

“Did you just call her what I think you did?” A smile crossed the face of the girl at her feet. “Well that is interesting. A Wormwood, here? I am lucky. Where are the rest of your clan dear? You know-”

Wednesday pressed onto the bolt again.

“You don’t talk to her. Look at me. Where is my bother.”

“Wednesday?” There was a warm hand on her shoulder. “This won’t help.”

Wednesday didn’t look away, her brown eyes still locked with the Valk’s blue.

“I’m going to give you one more chance. And then I’m going to pull this trigger and see how much brain is really inside your head. Where. Is. My Brother?”

The girl on the floor smiled, and then started to laugh. A cold, hard laugh. 

“Poor poor Wednesday, coming all this way. One brother lost, the other a traitor. A family with so little power they have to cling to their brother clans just to stay at the top. Perhaps all of your effort would be better placed going home and talking to those who have worked only to rid your family of the disease that runs through it.” The smile on her face was manic, and Wednesday could feel her arm shaking. 

What was she talking about? Her family had power, they had more power than half of the clans put together, they just didn’t feel the need to sling it around. She knew that, they all knew it. One a traitor? What had Pubert done?

“Confused? Of course. You never were very good at seeing what was right in front of you. Go home, Wednesday. Go back to your books and your little toys. Leave this to the real families. Your brother is so far from you now that even if you find him you won’t get him back. He’s ours, body and mind.”

There was another tug on her shoulder, and footsteps behind them somewhere. 

“Wednesday more are coming. She’s playing you.”

She shook the hand off, lowered her crossbow and put a bolt into the other of the Valk girls legs. The scream bounced off the walls. 

“Explain yourself.” It was a shaken whisper.

“Go home. Talk to the one sibling you have left. Ask him about the ability that we wield. The strength that your family has forgotten. Ask him how we got to you so easily.”

Before Wednesday could say anything else Matilda stepped in front of her, hands raised. 

“Wednesday, please. We have to go.”

“But she-”

“No. We have to go now.”

She stepped around Matilda, bringing the heavy stock of her bow clean down onto the mass of blonde before them. 

“She will pay, Artemisia. She-”

“Fine. Yes.” Matilda was taking the bow from her, suspending it with her powers a few inches away from them. “But we have to go. We can talk about all of this later.”

“I’m going to get him back.”

She let Matilda take her hand and pull her back up the passage, her thoughts on her brothers and the strange things that she had been told about them. Could it be true?


	35. Matilda

Matilda didn’t have anything left in her to run, but she pulled Wednesday along, the words of the strange girl ringing in her ears. 

She had known, immediately it seemed, something about being a Wormwood. At least, she had claimed to. What did that mean? Were there more people like her? Were her parents part of some larger group like the Addams clan? 

There were more questions than she was going to get answers for, and they were still in a lot of danger. Wednesday hadn’t said a word since they had started running, and though Matilda had let her take the crossbow back she wasn’t letting go of the hand that she had taken for fear that Wednesday would turn back and finish was she had started. There was something in her eyes, something cold that made Matilda shiver. She had been ready to kill that girl, whoever she was, and she wouldn’t have thought twice about it. 

Matilda wasn’t sure what that would have done to Wednesday, but she didn’t think that it would be good. As strange as her friend might be, she wasn’t a murderer. She couldn’t sink to the level of those who had taken her brother. If nothing else, Matilda knew that she would have to be the one to make sure of that. She couldn’t let Wednesday become something so terrible. 

They were coming back into well lit spaces, and Matilda could hear voices again, shouts echoing around them but there seemed to be less panic. 

All she had to do was get them out alive. 

“Wednesday,” she whispered, peeking around a corner before hurrying on. “I know you’re probably angry with me, but I’m going to need you to get out. I can’t see on those stairs.”

There was no answer. 

“You can be mad all you want once we get out, but for now, please work with me. Please.”

There was a small squeeze on her hand, and she breathed a little more easily as she felt Wednesday falling into step next to her rather than dragging behind. 

Together, they crept back to the dark cavern that they had entered through, seeing a mirror of themselves coming through the door on the other side. They hadn’t met a single person, and Matilda was sure that that too had been deliberate. That the Valk family had made it so that they could get out. There was a plan that they weren’t privy too and the fear of that was knotting itself in her stomach. 

They made it up the long dark staircase in silence, hands clasped the way that they had been on the way down. 

At the top of the stairs Matilda caught the arrow that they had left to strike whoever came out of the entrance and flung it aside. She pulled the plank back over the gap and flopped to the ground, her head in her hands, breathing properly for the first time since they had started their descent.

“Artemisia-”

“Don’t you dare apologise to me Wednesday Addams,” she snapped, looking up. “Don’t you dare. You did what you thought you had to and you’ll be thinking about it for a long time I’m sure. Just tell me what we’re going to do now.”

“We?”

“If you think I’m not going with you after that then you have another thing coming.”

She saw a flicker of a smile pass behind Wednesday’s eyes. 

“What did I do to deserve you?”

“I don’t know," Matilda sighed, "but I’m sure you’re going to pay for it.”

“I probably will. But right now, I just want to get out of here, okay?”

She took the hand that Wednesday extended to her, and let herself be pulled back to standing even though all she wanted to do was lay down and sleep. 

“So, where are we going?”


	36. Wednesday

Wednesday was more pleased than she had ever been to see Thing, tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel of their old car. He gestured wildly towards them as they approached, pointing up at the sky and then tapping the dash, then pointing to the sky again. 

“Thing what?”

“He’s telling us that we’ve been a long time. We arrived in the early hours and look.” Matilda pointed to the sky as well. “The sun is setting.”

“Thing. Take us home, please. I need to talk to Grandmama, I need to ask for some help.”

She didn’t see any of the journey home. The moment that they had started moving she had leaned her head against the back of the seat and passed out. 

*

The next she knew she was laying on top of the sheets of her own bed, a weight pressing towards her feet, and the slow sounds of someone breathing in her room. She sat up quickly, and saw Matilda sitting at the end of her bed, leaning against the wall, fast asleep. For a moment, she allowed herself a smile, and then remembered what had happened. She needed to talk to her mother, to Grandmama and perhaps to Fester, who knew more about the other clans than most of their family. 

She was exhausted, she ached all over, and the fear that her brother was steadily being taken further and further from them twisted in her gut. 

“Mother!” she shouted, running up the stairs to where the family usually spent their evenings. “Mother I must speak with you.”

“Wednesday?” her mother’s gentle voice rang out from the dining room. “Wednesday dear you should be resting.”

“There’s no time for that.” She leaned against the door frame, out of breath. “The Valk sisters definitely have Pugsley, and-”

She stopped, there was someone more important that she needed to talk to. Someone who the sister had suggested might know more than he was letting on. 

“Pubert.” 

Without another word, ignoring her mother’s shouts, she ran from the room in search of her youngest brother. Fully intent on ringing the information form him. 

“He’s out.”

She banged again on Pubert’s door, but the same answer found her. 

“He’s out, Wednesday.”

She span around to face the owner of the voice. 

“Grandmama?”

“I understand that you are worried, and angry, and looking for answers that we just don’t have. But all you can do now is sleep. I will contact those who I can for information while you rest. You’re taking on too much.”

“Grandmama, the Valk girl said something about Pugsley losing his mind to them? That they had taken him from us in more than body. What does that mean?”

Her Grandmama shook her head. 

“It means that they are using some of their oldest tricks to keep him. Let me deal with this tonight. I promise you that I will answer your many questions in the morning but right now you can do nothing.”

She fixed Wednesday with an unnervingly lucid stare, and Wednesday thought better than to argue. Instead, she let her shoulders slump.

“Artemisia is with me. She is asleep on the end of my bed. Could you send Lurch down with the spare?”

“Of course. Now go!”

Without another argument Wednesday trudged back down to here underground room. By the time she got there Lurch had already set out the spare bed, and gently lifted Matilda onto it without her stirring at all. It was something that Wednesday had seem him do only once before, when her mother had been so ill that she was unable to take herself down to her chambers. For all of his bulk, Lurch was the most gentle person she knew.

“Thank you,” she whispered as Lurch bowed to her and backed out of the room. 

Wednesday didn’t bother to get undressed, slipping off only her shoes before laying down atop her sheets, letting her hand drape over the edge of the bed in a way that she had never done before so that it rested just touching Matilda’s warm fingers. 

As much as she tried to resist, tried to sift through the events of the day in her mind, sleep took her within moments and she knew nothing more.


	37. Matilda

Matilda paced up and down, wanting to disturb Wednesday’s discussion with her parents, but not daring to. There was so much that she wanted to know, and so much that it had been deemed she couldn’t, because it was Addams business. That made sense, of course, but she had itchy feet and there was nothing that seemed to be able to get rid of them. 

“It won’t help you know.”

The voice was smooth, cool, and just a little bit slippery. She knew who it was without even needing to turn around. 

“Pubert,” she said, maintaining her step. “You know there are rumours flying around that you’re working with other clans. Care to tell me about it?”

“Perhaps.” Matilda could almost hear him sneer. “If you tell me which of them you’re from and what you’re trying to get our of my sister.”

That stopped her. He was the second person in as many days to assume that she was from one of the old families. The second person to suggest that perhaps there were things about her that she didn’t know. 

“What makes you think-” 

She was interrupted by the slamming open of the dining room door, Wednesday storming out of it and almost crashing into her. 

“I know where to go.”

That was all she said before carrying on back towards her bedroom. 

Matilda took one look at Pubert, who was smirking at them both, made a gesture that Jenny would have been horrified to see and hurried after Wednesday. 

She didn’t say a word until they had made it back into Wednesday’s bedroom, and the door had been pushed closed behind her. Wednesday was in a temper that Matilda hadn’t seen even in the chambers below the Valk house. She was marching up and down, stuffing things into a bag and muttering. 

“Wednesday, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Father has ordered me not to go, to take no more part in this and to leave it to people who are more able to do something. He estimates that they should have enough information to offer the Valks a deal for Pugsley before the month ends. And that deal might not even be getting him back, it might just be arranging some kind of union that won’t end with the ruin of my family.”

She flung the bag onto the bed and flopped after it. 

“It’s as though he doesn’t care that he’s gone. And I know that that’s wrong and I know that he loves us both but I don’t understand how he’s so calm knowing what we do about those people.”

“So what are we going to do?” Matilda sat down between Wednesday and the bag. 

“I’m going, no matter what Father says. I think I know where to try, he let something slip that he shouldn’t have. He won’t let me take the car and he won’t let Thing come with us and he certainly isn’t going to allow Lurch to leave the house but he can’t stop me from going if I want to.”

“Well, if we’re going to be going some way away then I’m going to need a few supplies from home.”

She shifted a little uncertainly. 

“If, uh, you wanted me to come still. Did you maybe want to come and meet Jenny? See the house?”

For some reason she couldn’t meet Wednesday’s eye. She had almost wanted to keep their friendship entirely to herself, and even though she had spent a lot of time inside the Addams manor it didn’t feel the same as taking Wednesday back home. That would mean it was really real, which meant that there was a chance that it would end. 

Wednesday had sat up and was staring straight at her. 

“Really?”

“It’s okay if you don’t-”

“No I would love to. I had assumed you didn’t want me to see it or…”

“No no, I just, I haven’t ever really taken someone home and Jenny will ask a LOT of questions and if we’re in a hurry?”

She tried not to let her voice shake, but there was a bunching in her stomach and a heat in her throat that she couldn’t seem to swallow back. 

“I would love to see the house that made you.”

Matilda smiled, though no less anxious.

“So now all we have to do is sneak past your father.”

It was Wednesday’s turn to smile. 

“That’s the easy part.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> Sorry that this chapter is a day late, I has having some technical difficulties which are now all resolved and the upload schedule should be back to normal. 
> 
> I hope you all had a decent holiday period and are excited about 2020!
> 
> Love and words
> 
> Kat


	38. Wednesday

Wednesday hurried around the room, packing with a much more sensible mind now that they had even part of a plan. She was excited in her way to be finally having the chance to meet Jenny. Matilda had talked about her quite a lot, though she may have been embarrassed by the fact if it was pointed out to her, and she was keen to meet the woman who had been so influential. 

“So,” Matilda was looking around the room with a puzzled frown. “If you’ve been banned from going after your brother, how are we going to get out of the house?”

Wednesday raised an eyebrow, and tried her best not to smirk. 

“Do you really think, that after all of these years and all of the access to resources and plans and mechanics and Uncle Fester, that I wouldn’t have found at least one or two ways out of this place? Or…” she swung around to the bookshelf and, looking at Matilda in the most dramatic fashion she could manage, “have created one of my own?”

She tugged on the seventh book until it clicked, and carried on holding as the entire shelf slid sideways into the wall, dragging her along slightly and revealing a narrow passage with tiny glowing blue lights all the way down. 

Though she was trying not to beam at the look of surprise on Matilda’s face, a smile did creep onto her lips. 

“I had a lot of time as a child.”

“Apparently.”

“You ready?”

Matilda nodded and Wednesday let go of the book. 

“Then let’s go and meet your…house.”

The bus took longer than Wednesday had anticipated, but it wasn’t unpleasant. She sat in near silence with Matilda at her side, looking out of the window and wondering what she was getting her friend into. She was likely going somewhere terribly dangerous, with almost no plan, and no real idea what she would do if she did find the entire Valk family in one house. Though she had thought about what it would be like to go to war, and she had joked in her younger days that if anyone did anything to her brother they would have her to deal with. But now that it was happening, she was worried that she wasn’t going to be strong enough. 

“Wednesday?” She jumped, realising that she had been zoned out for a long time. 

“Hmm?”

“We need to get off here. The house is just a short walk.”

She followed, still lost in thought, until they came to what Matilda had always referred to as a house, but what was clearly a manor grand enough to almost rival her own home. 

There was no hiding her surprise, but she tried to conceal it a little as Matilda blushed a deep red. 

“Welcome to the Honey residence, I suppose.”

The red brick manor towered over them, with a slightly wild garden and ivy climbing up one whole side of the house. It looked exactly like the kind of house you would find in a story book, complete with little pebble paths and flowery curtains at the windows. 

Matilda stopped at the front door and turned, still looking sheepish. 

“I apologise in advance for what’s about to happen. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“It’s fine I’ll just-”

“Matilda!”

She watched Matilda wince, for just a split second and then she turned and beamed at the voice. 

“I’m home.”

Wednesday stood, awkward, as Matilda was pulled into a hug. There was a brief pause before she was spotted.

“And you must be Wednesday! Matilda has talked far less than I would like about you.”

She found herself dragged into the same hug. 

“It’s good to meet you, Jenny,” she said, speaking directly into a dusty purple cardigan. 

“Well come in, come in, you must be staying for dinner. Matilda had told me that you would be coming of course so I have prepared a range of things, what do you eat? Is there anything that you don’t eat? Let me give you a tour, I’m sure Matilda has things that she wants to see to in the house.”

Wednesday met Matilda’s eyes and saw the apology in them as Jenny talked and talked and talked. It was going to be a long evening.


	39. Matilda

“I cannot even begin to apologise for that.” 

Matilda had felt the heat on her face the entire evening that they had spent with Jenny, and it worsened every time a probing question was directed at Wednesday with a small smile in Matilda’s direction. She knew better than most what was being suggested, and while she was the first to admit that there was something about Wednesday that fascinated her she was not at all prepared to think of it at any more than that. But Jenny had spent the entire evening suggesting that there might be something between the friends to be scandalised by, and accepting as she was it had been incredibly awkward for both her and Wednesday. 

She had almost been glad when the time had come to leave. 

“Jenny was certainly excited to meet me.” Wednesday shook her head. “You would almost think that you had never brought a friend home, Artemisia.”

The blush returned to Matilda’s face, and she looked up in time to see Wednesday’s smirk falter.

“Well I-”

She was halted in her explanation by a hand on hers.

“Me either. My parents are just less…chatty.”

“The good news,” Matilda said, shrugging her bag higher into her shoulders, “is that she likes you.”

“You could tell?”

She nodded, kicking a stone ahead of her as they trudged towards the bus stop. 

“Definitely. She wouldn’t have tried to feed you six servings of desert if she hadn’t liked you.”

They walked on in silence, and Matilda hoped that her embarrassment didn’t show too much. It was one thing for Jenny to have been excited, but she had never seen the frantic flustering that had been the theme of their evening. It was almost as though Jenny had been as nervous as she was to be introduced to Wednesday as Matilda had been to take her home in the first place.

She was worried, though, that Jenny might be putting too much on it too quickly. There was a conversation to be had there when she got back home. Along with the conversation that she hadn’t had about missing a lot of time from her studies, and the one about what she was going to do if she didn’t end up passing her degree because of the trip with Wednesday.

Despite all of the worries, for the first time in her life she was doing something that she was certain was important, rather than things that other people had told her mattered, and that felt good.

“So,” she said, breaking the silence as they sat on the low wall that marked the bus stop. “Where are we going?”

“Probably further than is advisable considering we have limited funds, no transport of our own and only the supplies that we can carry between us.” Matilda tried to control the smile that always crept over her face when Wednesday was being overly sombre. Though she had always been a serious child she found it easier to be slightly less so when paired with the dour solemnity that Wednesday wore like a cloak.

“Do we have a direction?”

“East. My father suggested that they are almost on the other side of the country, that their base of operations was so far away that it might as well be in the ocean.”

“So coastal.”

“Exactly.”

“You know,” Matilda said, casting her mind back to the various maps that she had collected as a child. “If you go right across to the very edge of the coast, it’s north east I suppose, but there’s a lighthouse way out on an island all of it’s own. Has a ton of lore around it, that it’s abandoned and haunted and was the last resting place or a mass murderer and that people go there and lose their minds and never return. Fascinating folk history if you are interested in that sort of thing…”

She trailed off with Wednesday staring at her open mouthed. 

“How is it possible that you know at least something about almost everything?”

Matilda shrugged, but she could feel herself blushing. 

“I like maps, and I like history, so when those two things go together. I wish I had known sooner, I would have picked some of them up. It really will be a long way to go.”

She frowned as the bus pulled in, as empty as it ever was travelling towards the city.

“If we’re going there, we need to go to the central terminal and see if any of the coaches will get us anywhere close. Something tells me that they won’t, or at least that one won’t. And of course that’s if I’m right about where we should be heading.”

“It sounds like the right kind of place,” Wednesday mused, scanning her bus pass and swinging herself onto one of the tattered old seats. Matilda flopped down next to her, turning so that they were half facing one another. 

“My family are considered strange for how public we are with our lives and our, differences,” Wednesday went on. “There are many older families who like to hide what they are, keeping themselves shadowed behind myth and illusion. There’s a chance that they are in that lighthouse, but there’s also a chance that they are creating the stories to take attention away from themselves. Either way, I think that’s where we need to go.”

The bus lurched forwards, and Matilda leaned back, running through any and all information she had read about that area in her mind, and then about all of the other strange happenings that have been documented around the world over the years, put down to fairy stories and imagination. 

How many of them were much more than that?


	40. Wednesday

Wednesday hadn’t expected to tire of her own thoughts so quickly, but the bus ride was taking an incredibly long time and there was almost nothing to do but think. Matilda had dealt with a large part of the plans, seemingly knowing her way around the country even through she had never travelled, and they had ended up on the last bus from one small town to another, winding through country roads that were only half taking them in the right direction.

But that was their only option, to hop from place to place as cheaply as possible, hoping that they would eventually find somewhere sensible to sleep for the evening. She had half imagined, before setting out, that it would be some kind of adventure. But the more they travelled the more she saw that it was just one long slog, every mile the same, with out any sign of changing.

“Artemisia,” she whispered, acutely aware that she was the only person left awake on the bus. “I think when we reach the next town we need to find a place to stay. Travelling at night will do us little good.”

“I would have expected you to _want_ to travel at night,” Matilda mumbled. “What with all of the midnight walks and bats and…”

She trailed off, and Wednesday realised that she was still largely asleep. With a smile nudged her companion and, when a single eye opened and focused on her she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Bats?”

Though she would be the first to admit that she enjoyed the company of her pets over people most of the time, they were about as far from bats as it was possible to get.

“Artemisia are you still asleep?”

“No…”

The eye closed again and Wednesday huffed. She had never been able to sleep on the move, even as a child she had been wide awake whenever the family had travelled, no matter how long they were on the road for. 

“I’m going to tell the driver that we’re getting off at the next-”

A huge bang from the back of the bus halted her. Matilda shot straight upright, suddenly wide awake.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know” Wednesday said, looking to the back window. The internal lights were casting a strange glare so that she couldn’t see anything outside.

The bus rumbled to a halt, and Wednesday realised that there was only one other person on it with them. She looked over to Matilda who seemed to be seeing the same thing that she was. 

“Wait here,” she said, grabbing her bag and hoping that the untested folding crossbow that rested within would work as well as she had designed it to. She would almost have been excited to try it were it not for the sinking feeling in her chest that she would actually have to. 

The closer she came to the drivers seat the more she knew that something was very wrong. There had been no announcement, no instructions to the passengers to remain in their seats or remain calm. There was just, nothing. She took a steadying breath, and took the final step to look into the cab. 

The driver was there, head lolling down toward his chest, unmoving. 

She pulled the bow out, heard the snapping and clicking as it assembled itself, and rounded on the door.

Nothing. 

A glance back told her that Matilda was doing something similar, there was a pulsing through the bus that could only have been the waves of her power, searching for something. The man at the back of the coach was sitting very still, hood up, and though Wednesday wasn’t sure, she thought she could see a smile crossing his lips. 

Ideas flashed past her mind so quickly she could hardly organise them all. There would be a strategy, and she had to work out what it was before they got too far. 

The man on the bus was either a distraction or a source of information. Either way she was quite confident that Matilda could handle him. It was what was happening outside that was going to be the real tell. She hated the thought that she would have to leave Matilda alone, but there seemed no other choice. They were trapped inside, with no driver, and no idea how to drive a bus. 

On second thought, she probably could work out how to drive a bus, if it came to it, but there was still too much unknown outside to make that the best plan.

She stepped cautiously back up the bus, not keeping her eyes off the door until she was back to back with Matilda. 

“I’m going to check outside. Stay here. Keep an eye on him.”

“He hasn’t moved an inch.”

“I know. I think he’s one of _them_.”

She didn’t want to say the name out loud, but there seemed little doubt. 

“What if it’s a trap?”

“It’s almost certainly a trap.”

“Last time you said that to me we were very nearly killed.”

Wednesday smiled.

“Doesn’t that make it more interesting?”

She was striding down the length of the bus before Matilda could respond. She knew, somewhere in her mind, that just walking out into what could very well be a hail of arrows, was a bad idea. It was even possible, of course, that the Valks had moved past the simple weaponry that she favoured and would have brought firearms to her proverbial knife fight. 

With the crossbow levelled in front of her, fighting the urge to inspect it’s assembly, she kicked the emergency release for the doors and stepped into the crisp night air.


	41. Matilda

Matilda watched the man. She was starting to wonder if he was even alive, he had moved so little since the bus had rolled to a stop. Only the gentle rise and fall of his chest gave him away. 

There was no sound outside, nothing that would tell her what was happening with Wednesday, and though she knew that Wednesday was as capable of looking after herself as she was, she felt far less secure when they were apart. 

The silence stretched, eerie. The more she stared at the man the less he seemed to be moving, and yet she was afraid to take her eyes off him just in case. 

She ached to look around, to turn and see if the prickling feeling behind her was more than her mind playing tricks. She wanted to run to the window and check if Wednesday was okay, to start up the bus and drive away, drive back home and back to the kind of life that she had dared to think was boring. But Wednesday had told her to watch the man, and she knew that it was the best thing to do. She didn’t have a head for tactics and she wasn’t as brave as she had thought she was. 

Still the man didn’t move. 

“Hey.” 

The word that she had hoped would sound intimidating came out as more of a croak. 

The man didn’t move. There wasn’t so much of a flicker of his strange smile. 

Matilda took a step back. Still there was silence outside and she wasn’t sure if she had been standing there for minutes or hours in the strange stasis of watching. She took another step. So long as she faced him, she reasoned, she could move closer to the door, to where Wednesday had left from in case something went wrong and she needed to be out there.

“You know,” she said, trying to keep her tone casual, “if you’re planning on going up against her you’re going to do badly out of it.”

She hoped, if she kept talking, that she would be able to get a rise out of the man. But she wasn’t sure what she could say that wouldn’t give away their plans, or put the Addams’ in danger somehow. She needed time to think, but there wasn’t any of that. 

“If-” there was a huge bang outside, louder than the first had been, and the whole bus rocked over to the right. Matilda had to grab onto a seat to remain upright, losing her focus on the man for the briefest of moments.

When she looked back up he was gone. 

“Shit.”

The next few moments passed her by so quickly that she wasn’t sure what was happening. The whole area had moved from total silence to a wall of noise that half deafened her. It was so loud that she wanted to curl her arms over her head and hide until it went away. She could hardly see, and though she tried to focus on feeling her way around with her powers, she was struggling to keep focus even on that. All she knew was the blaring, terrible sound that seemed to be all around her. 

Something caught her from behind, and she span around but there was nothing there. Again, behind her a snag on her clothes, nothing to be seen. She was left spinning, throwing her powers out around her in the hopes that they might find something, but there was nothing within reach. 

Her heart was pounding in her ears, only adding to the cacophony of sound and she did the only thing left that she could think to do. She sank to the ground, curled herself as tightly as she could, wound her powers around herself like a shield, and waited.


	42. Wednesday

Wednesday stood in the silence outside the door of the bus, waiting. 

It was a trap, that much she knew, but she couldn’t work out why. If the Valks were trying to stop them then it meant that they were on the right track. She wished that she knew more about them, about where their ability lay. The Clans all had _something_. Something that was other about them, that made them different from the mundane people who walked through the world. But none of her family could tell her what their otherness was, so she was left to guessing and hoping that she worked it out before it was too late for the information to be useful. 

She stepped lightly towards the back of the bus, listening for anything more than the rustling of the wind through the trees that surrounded them. It was dark, the moon was high, and if she didn’t know better she would have believed that she was completely alone out there.

But of course, she did know better.

The closer she drew to the back of the bus the more she knew that she was right, that there was nothing normal about the way that they had been stopped. The wheel on the side that the blow had come from was completely in tact, as though they had merely pulled to the side of the road for a rest break. There was no smoke rising from it, no signs that anything had touched it at all. When she lay a careful hand on it, though, it was hot to the touch and humming as through some great energy had recently coursed through it. 

“I know you’re here,” she snarled into the darkness. “Waiting. Skulking in shadows like the thieves and traitors that you are.”

There was no response.

“I’m sure that you think what you have done is very clever. And I will commend you for finding us with such speed. I had expected it to take at least a few more days. But you have revealed yourselves far too soon.” She smiled. “And I don’t suppose that it will be your last mistake.”

Still she was met by only the wind, but she hadn’t expected answers. What she had expected is exactly what happened. The Valks, smart as they were, had not perfected her ability to move unheard. There were new rustlings all around her. Bodies moving through the trees, shadows moving from one space to another. She had them, though they may not know it, she was counting their number as they crept around for ambush and she was quite confident that she could get back to and board the bus before they got too close. 

The only thing that concerned her was that there was no sound still from inside the bus. She had half expected the man at the back to ambush as soon as she had stepped out, but she couldn’t see or hear anything coming from inside. Perhaps he was being held at bay, perhaps he was just as unconscious as the driver and not any part of whatever the Valks were planning. 

Then again. What if they were trying to keep the pair apart? What if-

There was sudden movement from inside the bus, and a strange prickly feeling across her skin, like the stroke of Matilda’s magic but somehow colder, harsher. 

She turned and, forgetting the people in the trees and the movement that was getting ever closer, she ran back towards the doors. 

They were shut, and held closed by…something. She pressed her back to them, feeling more than seeing the advance of the various Valks, or their allies. There would be a way into the bus from the outside, there had to be, otherwise there would be no way for the drivers to get on. 

_Think, Wednesday, think!_

But there seemed to be something blocking her from thinking clearly, something clouding her mind and making her want to just lay down, drop the crossbow and sleep. 

She was so, so tired.

“Wednesday…”

The voice was so small, so quiet that she barely heard it, but it was enough to shake her out of the drowsy haze that had fallen over her.

She straightened herself, re-gripping the crossbow and snarling.

It took a couple of seconds to find the emergency release and then the doors were open and she was inside, scanning the bus for any sign of Matilda and the man. 

He was standing over her, fingers lightly touching the sides of his head and staring down at her as though trying to figure something out. Wednesday could feel…something. It was almost boiling around Matilda as she held herself in a tiny ball, her head tucked into her arms. 

The smallest keening sound was escaping the ball. 

Wednesday saw black.


	43. Matilda

Matilda felt, more than heard, the bolts whizzing past her. Three short, sharp thumps and the wall of noise fell away. Then there were hands, hands pressing on her power trying to get through. 

The sickly, greasy feeling that had been wrapping itself around the shield that she had built had vanished with the noise, and when she finally managed to pull herself upright a mess of black hair and pale skin was desperately pounding against the wall of protection. There was a glisten of moisture in her eyes and she was saying something. 

Matilda dropped her powers. Releasing the tension that she had held in her body for…how long had it been? 

“Wednesday?”

She looked across at the once again unmoving man, slumped against a chair with three heavy bolts sticking out of his chest. 

“Artemisia,” she had dropped to her knees and was staring intently at Matilda, who was still trying to work out quite what had happened. “Did he touch you? Did he hurt you? What happened? Why?”

“It hurt.” She managed, croaking the words out more than she had expected. “There was sound, in my head, and it hurt and I couldn’t see.” She shook herself, trying to appear less afraid than she had felt “I couldn’t stop it.”

“But you stopped him touching you?”

Matilda nodded.

“I was afraid. If I pushed back too hard I could have…”

She looked again at the body. 

“I didn’t want…”

“I know.” It was barely a whisper. 

That was when the shock really hit. She was shaking and she felt hot and sick and it was as though her mind was just shutting itself down. 

Cool hands on her face pulled her up to meet Wednesday’s eye.

“There’s no time for that now. You have to get up. I need you to help me move the driver and we have to go.”

“But the bus-” her mouth was so dry she could hardly get the words out.

“Was stopped with…something. But it should run. We need to go.”

Matilda wobbled to her feet, leaning on Wednesday for support more than she wanted to need to, but not daring to let go of the only thing that was keeping her grounded. 

“What do we do with-” she looked back at the body. “Him.”

“For now we leave him. I’m sure I can think of something later.”

Wednesday’s face was set into a hard mask, and Matilda wanted desperately to say something, anything, to comfort her. But what comfort was there to give? He was dead. They couldn’t change that. 

“We should roll him outside. Leave them to deal with him.”

She didn’t wait for a response, trickling her power out behind her to drag the body forward. It left a sickening trail behind it, but she closed her eyes and kept tugging. 

“Open the door, Wednesday,” she whispered. 

The doors hissed and cold air flooded them. With one heave she threw the body out and watched as the doors eased themselves closed. 

There was still no sound from the outside, but she was glad of it. Silence was better than what she had been subjected to. 

With more care than she had afforded the first, she moved the second body out of the drivers seat, pleased to feel the humming of life beneath his skin. Once he was settled across two seats Wednesday took to the drivers seat and all that was left was for Matilda to cross her fingers and try to forget what had just happened.


	44. Wednesday

Wednesday thanked every ancestor she could think of when the bus roared into life. She didn’t know how long it would last for if the Valks were on their tail, but it didn’t matter so long as they were moving at least for a while.

“Have you driven a bus before?” Matilda asked, strapping herself in to a seat close by.

“No.” Wednesday shrugged. “But Lurch lets me drive the hearse and how different can it be?”

It was incredibly different. 

Everything was heavy and the gears didn’t do what she wanted them to and it felt like every corner took them onto the wrong side of the road. Within minutes her arms and shoulders were aching and an hour in her hands were starting to go numb. 

But she didn’t want to admit it to Matilda, not after everything. She had put her into a kind of danger that she had never even walked herself into. She had separated them in the hopes that it was the best idea, and not considered what might happen. She hadn’t realised that the Valks might be able to work out Matilda’s power, and find a weakness for it. 

She had had to kill a man. 

Of course, it was for a good reason and she would do it a hundred times over if it kept Matilda safe. But she hadn’t expected it to make her feel so weak. So fragile and vulnerable. If she could snatch breath and soul away from someone so swiftly, then the same could be done to her. Until then she had been invincible. 

“Do you think they’re still following us?” Matilda asked, jerking Wednesday out of her own mind. 

“If that was them, then yes I think they are.”

“What do you think they did to the driver?”

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t like not having the answers, especially when she could hear the fear that was riding on every word. 

Wednesday risked a glance over to where Matilda was still sat, her knees pulled up to her chest, staring at the road ahead of them. It was like she was only half there, the rest of her lost in whatever had happened to them. She had believed, they had both believed, that Matilda would be the stronger of them. But whatever they had done…She tightened her grip on the wheel, trying not to let anger boil in her again. Kidnapping her brother through his own stupidity was one thing. She wasn’t even that angry with the Valks for that. It was business. But hurting someone who wasn’t in the clans, who wasn’t part of any of it other than being friends with Wednesday? That was a whole other problem. 

Though, of course, there was still a chance that Matilda was one of them, by some distant connection. One of the sisters had said as much, asked where Wednesday had found her. She didn’t want to press Matilda for information about her family, but she couldn’t say that she wasn’t curious. 

“I will confess,” she said by way of trying to start a conversation, “that I have no idea where we’re going.”

“Away.” Matilda said. “Just away.”

Wednesday frowned. She had never seen Matilda so despondent. Flattened by whatever had happened. She wanted to offer comfort, whatever form that might take, but she didn’t know how. It had never been her way.

They kept driving, Wednesday saying nothing, Matilda looking out of the windows. It was a far cry from their usual easy silence, and though Wednesday was glad that she wasn’t alone there was a stabbing in her chest every time she glanced over to the huddled, quiet girl. 

It wasn’t supposed to go so wrong.


	45. Matilda

Time seemed to stretch, and as they drove Matilda lost all sense of where and when they were.

The sound that had burrowed into her head wasn’t anything like she had ever experienced. It was as though it was coming from her, finding every corner of her and filling it with pain that nobody else could hear. She had always hoped that there were other people like her in the world, others with abilities and powers. She hadn’t ever considered that they might be willing to use what they had to hurt her. 

And on top of it all Wednesday was blaming herself. She wanted to tell her not to be so foolish, that sentimentality didn’t suit her, but somehow what would usually be so welcome didn’t feel right at all. They hadn’t talked about the man, about the bolts that flew so fast that even she might not have been able to stop them. They hadn’t really talked at all. There was just pain, resting behind Wednesday’s eyes and revealing more than anything she could say. 

“You need to rest.”

She surprised herself by saying it, but it was true. 

“I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t, Wednesday. You’ve started to drift into the hedge twice now and we are no closer to anything that appears to be civilisation. You can’t just keep going forever.”

“It’s not safe to stop. They will be watching us, following us-”

“So?” Matilda snapped more that she had intended to. “Look, if they are watching and following and driving us into some kind of trap then we are going to have to deal with that. But we can’t deal with anything if you are exhausted from not sleeping and aching too much to use that crossbow because you’ve been driving a bus that apparently hasn’t come into this century.”

They stopped the bus in a lay-by, turning off all of the lights inside and out, manoeuvring inside with nothing but the light of Matilda’s phone.

“At least I remembered to pack snacks,” Matilda said, pulling two packets of popcorn out of her bag.

She handed a bag over, and stared at Wednesday until she conceded, opened it and started to eat.

As the silence stretched Matilda realised that she was going to need to be the first to say something, that Wednesday would likely stew forever if she didn’t. 

“I’m not angry with you,” she said. “And I don’t blame you at all.”

She found some strength as she went on, keeping her eyes locked with Wednesday’s in the gloom. 

“And if you tell me to go back now I promise that I will hold all of the doors of this bus so tightly closed that even an ant wouldn’t be able to leave because, as stupid as it is, we’re in this together now and I’m not letting you go it alone.”

“But-”

“Wednesday Friday Addams are you listening at all? You’re stuck with me. End.”

Wednesday’s mouth dropped open, and she flushed. She had sounded so much like her own mother. 

“Did you just-” Wednesday started but Matilda had already clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Who told you my middle name?”

The giggle was still trying to escape, so Matilda just shook her head.

“You’ve been talking to Grandmama haven’t you? I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone with you.”

But though she was trying to sound affronted, she was failing to hide the smile that was curling at the sides of her mouth, the lighter tone of her voice.

“I am sorry that I left you,” Wednesday said, the smile dropping a little. “I didn’t know that they would be able to do…what did they do?”

“I don’t know,” Matilda shrugged. “It was just this sound inside my head, all of my head, and it was too loud for me to be able to do anything else. It went when you,” she wasn’t sure there was a good way to phrase it, “stopped him.”

“Do you think if it happened again you would be able to stop it? Maybe if…”

Wednesday looked as though she was about to reach her hand out, to say something else, but she remained stoic and Matilda felt a tug in her chest. She wasn’t sure what she wanted, but sitting in the dark there, with what they had just done, she didn’t think that she would mind something more.

“I think that for now, we both just need to sleep,” she said, hoping that she sounded confident, knowing that she didn’t. “You get some rest first, I’ll wake you up when I’m too tired to keep my eyes open.”

She thought for a moment that Wednesday wouldn’t agree, but she eventually sighed, nodded, and pulled her crossbow back out of her bag, handing it to Matilda.

“The bolts go in there. It has a bulk load in so you shouldn’t need more. Hold it tight against you, point it at them and pull these lever to release. It will load the next one for you. Don’t worry about aim, just keep pulling until whatever is coming stops. Okay?”

“Wednesday I-”

“It’s your turn not to argue, Artemisia. If you can’t use your powers…I can’t have you hurt.”

Matilda swallowed, then nodded. 

“Okay. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

She watched Wednesday stride to the back of the bus and lay down across the very back row, arms crossed over her chest. For a time, Matilda simply watched the rise and fall of her chest until her phone battery died and they were thrust into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> Sorry that I have been entirely radio silent - work and life and all of that - but I am putting some time in to go back through all of your comments and reply to everyone soon!
> 
> I'm really enjoying these quieter moments between Matilda and Wednesday and I hope that you all are too.
> 
> Thank you all so much for continuing to read.
> 
> With love and words
> 
> Kat


	46. Wednesday

Wednesday awoke to the sound of Matilda’s gentle snoring. An early dawn light was coming in through the windows of the bus and she jolted off the seats as she realised what had happened. 

After a quick scan of the bus she started to breathe again. They were alone, nothing had moved, the driver was still slumped onto the seats in front of her. Somehow, though it seemed unlikely that it should have been possible, they had not been assassinated in their sleep. 

She stretched her tired shoulders, clicked the crick out of her neck, and walked the length of the bus to where Matilda was sitting. It looked as though she had passed out where she sat, her head lolling against the back of the seat, a book fallen to the floor beside her. 

“Artemisia,” she whispered, putting her hand onto the sleeping girl’s shoulder. “You need to wake up now.”

There was a stirring, and then the same, panicked start that she had experienced moments before.

“Wednesday! Is it morning? I fell asleep. What happened? Are we okay? I’m so-”

Wednesday put her hand over Matilda’s mouth, stifling the sound. 

“It’s all fine. Nothing has happened. I am in a way further suspicious in light of last evening’s events that they did not capitalise on the position.”

It looked to Wednesday as though Matilda might burst into tears, so she did the only thing that she knew to do. With an eyebrow cocked she picked up her crossbow and rested it against her hip before pulling Matilda to her feet.

“So,” she said, “want to learn how to drive a bus?”

It was probably a mistake, but she figured they were so far into their mistakes that they might as well make one more. And she wanted some time to think, to plan. Things that she couldn’t do while trying to remember how to drive. It was a clear early morning, and she was certain that in the light of day they would be able to find their way to a town that could then direct them on to where they needed to be. 

As long as they didn’t run out of fuel anyway.

Wednesday was surprised to find that Matilda drove quiet well, using both her physical body and her powers to wrench the vehicle around corners and keep even pressure on the accelerator pedal even when her ankles were tired. 

She was amazed whenever she got a chance to watch Matilda really use her powers. She had seen magic of course, all chanting and spices and gestures, but hers was so smooth, so clearly just a part of everything that she was that it didn’t need anything extra. It was beautiful and fascinating. Just like Matilda.

As soon as the thought came she pushed it to one side and stood up, shaking her head. She couldn’t afford to be sentimental like that, not again. She needed to think clearly and for some reason with Matilda around it wasn’t as easy to do so. 

Needing anything to focus her mind she wandered back to the driver, who was still breathing steadily, still entirely unconscious. She could have believed that he was sleeping had it not been for such a long time, but with no idea what had been done to him it was hard to know what the solution would be. She looked over him, uniform jacket, name badge reading ‘Frank’, neatly shined shoes. There was no way that he was one of them. 

Something in his pocket caught her eye. A folded, black piece of paper with gilded edges. There was only one manufacturer of such things, and it supplied her family stationery. With a glance back to Matilda, who was humming as she drove them steadily deeper into the country, she took a handkerchief from her bag, draped it over the paper, and slowly lifted it free. 

It was an envelope, the neat hand on the front addressing ‘Two Fine Sisters.’ She could feel rage building in her chest. She knew the flow of the ink on the page, knew the drawer in her mothers office that it would have been taken from, and as she turned the envelope in her hands the fury only grew as she saw, in glossed black wax the seal that her family had used for the last hundred generations. 

“Pubert.” It was more a snarl than a word. There was no denying the hand, clipped and plain and dull just like the boy had always been. The letter was still sealed, which in a way was good, it meant that whatever message he had for the sisters had been stalled, but the betrayal of their family was thick and bitter in her throat.

With shaking fingers she broke the seal and pulled out the crisp letter within.


	47. Matilda

Driving was almost starting to be fun. The initial fears about being pulled over, about not having any kind of license, about not knowing what she was doing, about the fact that she was in charge of a several ton death machine had all melted away. She was using her powers to help her, and once she had worked out the basics she had taken to it far better than anyone could have expected. 

It was good to be able to take her mind off the night before, and stop thinking about all of the danger that they were barrelling towards. She knew that they were out of their depth, and she was fairly certain that Wednesday knew it too. Just when she had thought that they were getting to grips with a plan everything had been shaken up, and neither of them were the same for it. She wanted to comfort Wednesday, to reassure her that there wasn’t any blame in what had happened. But she couldn’t find the words, and when she looked into the face and saw sorrow where once there had only been sobriety her heart hurt. 

But it had been going too well for too long, and half way through their second hour of driving the engine lurched, then spluttered, then died. They had ran out of fuel. 

“Wednesday, it looks like we’re on foot from here!” she called back, trying to sound at least a little chipper. 

There was no answer. 

She clicked the hazard lights on, though it would do little to fix the fact that they were blocking the entire road, and slipped out of the drivers seat. Wednesday was sitting on one of the seats a few rows back, holding two sheets of crisp black paper scrunched in her fist, scowling into space. 

“Wednesday?”

Matilda took two quiet paces towards the sitting figure, hardly daring to breath. Wednesday looked like she would explode at any moment, that any single whisper might set her off. Whatever was in those papers Matilda was sure that it wasn’t going to be good. 

“Wednesday, what’s happened?”

“Traitor.”

She took a step back, confused. 

“Wednesday I’m not-”

“Pubert.”

“What?”

“Blood traitor. The worst of our kind. Chameleon scum. Mother should have drowned the blonde abomination the moment that he came to be-”

“Wednesday.” Matilda took three wide strides forward, wrapping her power around Wednesday’s shoulders and giving her a sharp shake. “Either explain what’s going on or stop babbling.”

It was then that Wednesday finally looked up at her, eyes bloodshot, fury burning behind them. 

“Take these,” she said thrusting the paper at Matilda, “and see for yourself.”

Matilda took the slightly crumpled sheets, and squinted to read the curling silver words that wove across them. 

_Lovely sisters,_

_I trust that our plan is progressing as expected. Even as we speak my fool sister is moving in a direction that she presumes to be correct. The information planted in our archives has worked as intended and all is well. The family home now stands almost defenceless. Once Wednesday goes missing on her fools errand, taking her freak friend with her then I am certain that father and Fester will follow. This will leave you free, with my aid, to return with my brother and take what is owed. _

_I have enclosed some details of the defences on our manor, some will be harder to avoid than others but you are such clever ladies I am certain that it will pose no trouble. With all parties gone - as I trust that you will dispose of my fool siblings on my behalf - we will be free to continue the work of our joined minds._

_Until I meet with you again._

_PA_

“I see.” She folded the letters and slipped them into her pocket, hardly daring to look at the second sheet detailing almost every contraption that the Addams’ had installed to protect their manor over the centuries. “Wednesday we have to go back. Now.”

“And walk into their trap?” 

“We already have. This was planned, all of it. Pubert outsmarted us. He has been involved in this since the beginning and the longer we are away the worse it is going to be. We have more than enough here to take this to your father. He’s been stupid enough to use your name for goodness sake. This is the solution. We have to go.”

“How dare he do this to us.”

Matilda took a deep breath, trying to stem the frustration that was rising. 

“Wednesday, if I have to slap some sense into you I will. Yes, your brother is a traitor, yes this is terrible, yes there are a hundred things at play here but you need to snap out of it. We are out of fuel, in the middle of nowhere, with no plan. They are at least six steps ahead of us, and have been the entire time I think. What you need to do now, what I need you to do, is put that amazing mind of yours to a plan to getting us out of here because right now we don’t have any means of getting home.”

She crossed her arms, raised her eyebrow in the most Wednesday fashion she could manage and waited for an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello wonderful readers!
> 
> Today is my birthday so I have decided that I'm going to post two extra chapters this weekend as part of my celebrations!
> 
> I hope you enjoy them!
> 
> With love and words  
Kat


	48. Wednesday

Wednesday let Matilda’s words soak into her. 

A plan. They needed a plan. They needed to get back to the house as quickly as possible. Without being seen if they could. What was fast, unassuming, nimble. 

“Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?”

The words were out of her mouth before the plan was fully formed, but she felt a bubble of hope as they came out. 

“What?”

“That’s how we’re going to get home. You and me. And a motorcycle.”

“Wednesday I can’t ride a motorcycle.”

“Good luck for you then that I can.”

She had to chuckle as Matilda stared at her, bemused and slightly horrified, the tension in her body failing and the frustration that she had been trying to exude entirely gone. 

“So we just have to find one.”

“Wednesday you can’t just find a motorcycle in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not with that attitude.”

She leapt up from the seat, striding to the back of the bus where the Valk assassin had been sitting. She leaned down, and in seconds found what she had been looking for, a gloss black helmet. 

“The Valks favour them as a form of transportation. We both know that we’re being followed. So all we need to do is trace back until we see them and…borrow one.”

“But they will give chase?”

“Not if we’re clever. We will just need to make sure that we take their clothes too, at least the over clothes, and then ride for a while in the right direction before turning back. I have some money so we can get fuel and by the time they work out that we aren’t supposed to be there we’ll be long gone.”

She was smiling, really smiling, the glee of a well formed slightly devious plan pushing away the anger for a moment. It would be the perfect revenge, and there was no sense in wasting her emotions on Pubert while he wasn't there. Better to save them for later, for when she was in the same room as him.

Things moved quickly from there. With Matilda’s help she moved the still unconscious body of the bus driver back into the driving seat, hopeful that whatever the Valk family had done to him would be reversible once he was found - which of course he would be as soon as the Valk spies knew that they had left the bus. As far as she was concerned he was in on the ambush and so deserved whatever had befallen him. He was the carrier of the letter, so he was at fault. They packed their meagre things and with a small breakfast of snack food in their hands they started trudging back the way that they had come, trying to keep their steps quiet, trying to keep off the road. 

Wednesday had no idea how far they had come, or how far they had left to go, but there was a fire in her chest that propelled her onward. She knew that it would work, that it had to. The Addams’ didn’t know where they had gone, didn’t know what was lurking within their walls. She was the only hope that her family had left. Well, her and Matilda. It was up to them, and she wasn’t going to let her people down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!
> 
> This is the second of the birthday updates!
> 
> I've been thinking about three uploads a week for a while, especially now that the first draft is done. 
> 
> Is that something you guys would like? Or is two a week good? Let me know!
> 
> With love and words  
Kat


	49. Matilda

Matilda was worried. She was worried for Wednesday, for her family, for the Addams clan as a whole. Wednesday seemed confident, she always did, but this time it seemed that she was using confidence to mask whatever else was going on with her. They were doing their best to sneak through the brush that lined the road, making their way back towards whatever Wednesday thought lay behind them. Her legs were tired, her muscles stiff from a night of sleeping upright hunched against a bus seat. 

More than that, she was worried about what the whole ordeal might do to Wednesday. Whatever the Valk family had planned for the Addams’ was almost secondary to the impact that the suggestion of trouble was having. Wednesday had been cold from the moment that Matilda had first met her, with tiny moments of warmth showing through as their friendship had grown until she had started to think that there might be something else growing there, something strange and confusing but exciting at the same time. But those walls had come up and Wednesday was all ice once more. She was storming ahead of Matilda as they walked, not even looking back, and Matilda wanted to reach out and grab her, to stop her for a moment and…

And what? She didn’t know. But she knew that more than ever she was going to need to stay close, to keep Wednesday on the right path. To stop anything else from happening that would damage them both more than they could recover from. 

When she closed her eyes for too long she heard the dull thumps as bolts sunk into the man that they had killed. She saw his body toppled on the ground. Saw Wednesday’s horrified face. It should have broken them both, but neither of them had given it time to. At some stage, she knew, it would all catch up but for the time being it was all that they could do to keep outrunning it. 

She didn’t know how much time had passed, they just kept walking. 

Finally, when her legs were aching and her feet screaming at her for a rest and her stomach was starting to complain for more sustenance Wednesday came to a sudden halt, pointing ahead to a group that were huddled ahead of them at the side of the road. Four intimidatingly large motorcycles flanked by six figures. They were looking at something on the tank of one of the vehicles and seemed to be bickering. 

“We need to get them apart,” Matilda mouthed at Wednesday. “How?”

“There might be more.” Came the silent reply. “Stay here.”

Matilda watched as Wednesday moved forward with impressive speed, remaining completely silent in that uncanny way of hers. They had vaguely discussed a plan, though it was more Wednesday talking and her trying desperately to keep up. But it went along the lines of:

Step 1: Find the group  
Step 2: Get them to split into at least two groups - Wednesday’s part  
Step 3: Pull one of the motorcycles into the tree line while they are distracted - Matilda’s part  
Step 4: Regroup and hide  
Step 5: Ride to the Addams home.

There were things that they hadn’t taken into account, things that Matilda stood and worried about while she waited for Wednesday to do…what ever she had been planning. They didn’t have helmets for one thing, or rather they only had one which meant that she was going to have to try and get both one of the enormous machines and one of the helmets into the trees. They also had no other protective clothing. Wednesday had thought that that they would be able to steal the clothing of one of the Valks if they could knock them out somehow, but from where Matilda was standing they were all vastly larger than either she or Wednesday which would do them more harm than good. 

Add to that the fact that they didn’t know at all where they were supposed to be going, didn’t know where they were and wouldn’t be able to judge distance for fuel stops thanks to neither of them having ever ridden motorcycles more than a little and it was looking to be an unprecedented disaster.

At least, she reminded herself, she wasn’t alone. Between them she and Wednesday seemed to be a lucky pair and that gave her the smallest sliver of hope that it might just work. 

After a few more minutes there was a huge crashing sound and a shout that had all heads snapping in the direction where Wednesday had gone. Matilda didn’t know what she had done, but it seemed to be working. The group was splitting up. Four of the six headed slowly towards the noise, leaving two looking around for anything incoming. They were ready, it seemed, but not ready enough. 

Though she hadn’t known what the plan was, Matilda had been preparing in her own way, picking up stray pebbles and stones as they walked. Any that looked large enough slipped it’s way into her bag until she had quite a collection of them. She raised the first and largest of them and, using her powers as a guide, launched it as hard as she could at the back of a head. She didn’t wait to see if it had connected, pulling out three more and launching them at the remaining pair in quick succession.

Six hits each and they were down. Crouching in the trees she waited, watching their breathing which was steady and even. She had caught them as they fell, not wanting them to make a sound. 

In the far distance there were more crashes and shouts and she Matilda could hear the sounds of a crossbow loosing bolt after bolt into the trees. She didn’t have much time. 

With all the strength she could muster, calling her power out of fear more than anything else, she pulled the two unconscious bodies toward her, tucking them into the trees before doing the same with the motorcycle. 

It was extraordinarily heavy, cumbersome in the small space, and more than once she feared that she was making too much noise as she dragged it further and further back as they had agreed. It was going to take an age to put it back on the road but she didn’t care, all that mattered was that she hid well enough that nobody would find her until it was time to be found.


	50. Wednesday

Wednesday ran. She had been stupid, making far more noise than she had intended toppling yet another waiting motorcycle into the trees. It wouldn’t have been so bad had it not slid and fallen down the side of what she assumed was a very small cliff edge. But it had brought them running, from several directions. Which just left her to outrun them.

She was quick, and she was quiet. Two things that she had always hoped would be enough to keep her alive. They were going to be following her, the sounds that she didn’t leave behind were almost the best kind of trail for a good tracker, so she let bolts off at random, hoping that it would be enough to throw them off. She hadn’t planned enough, hadn’t thought things through. It had always been her weakness and she knew it as well as her brothers did. Impulsive, aggressive, quick to jump and quicker to learn that she had jumped too hard. It was too late for regret, though. She just had to run. 

Finally, after an hour of looping around the area, staying in the trees, she took a breath and a chance and climbed up the next large bough she could reach and didn’t stop until she could hardly see the floor. If they ran by she knew that she was safe, and she could make her way back to where she hoped Matilda was safely hidden. If they didn’t pass it meant they were waiting for her and she would have to think of something else.

Moments passed, her breath held, before she started to hear voices.

“She must have gone this way.”

“But there’s nothing here.”

“Aren’t you listening? Nothing is even more of a sign. She’s like a ghost, soundless, making no tracks. If she’s definitely not here then we can be sure that this is where she is.”

Wednesday tried not to snort at the terrible circular logic that had somehow led them to the correct conclusions. It was everything that she could do to stay perfectly still.

The man below her was pulling out a phone and dialling with frustrated stabs. 

“You found her? No. No she’s not here. Well I don’t know do I? Look just. Regroup. What do you mean my bike is gone?”

There was a long silence and Wednesday strained to see what was happening below.

“Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Shut up and walk Duke.”

Wednesday listened to them move away and started to descend. It was a slow process. She had made her way up largely on adrenaline and fear and there didn’t seem to be many ways to get back down. She was half way when she heard a rustling a little way away and froze, listening. 

_They left too easily, and you’re too distracted. That conversation was fast. This is a trap. They want you to come down._

It took all of her strength to stay where she was. To cling to the branches and lock solid so that there wasn’t so much as a single rustling coming from where she was. She breathed slowly, counting the seconds until 5 full minutes had passed by, and she heard another sound. A crunching of boots and low muttering as the pair really walked away from where she was. She had almost been foolish enough to fall for it. She had almost let them catch her. 

She didn’t know how long she held that frozen pose, but she needed to get back to Matilda. Their plan to sneak away wasn’t going to work, she knew that after the trick that the Valks had just pulled. They were too smart, and she wasn’t thinking quickly enough. It was time to bolt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 50! 
> 
> This feels like a huge milestone for me and I am so glad that you have all been here with me through the first 50 chapters of Addamswood.
> 
> Here's to 50 more.
> 
> With love and words  
Kat


	51. Matilda

As scared as she was, Matilda was almost starting to get bored. She had been sitting and sitting and sitting and waiting for long enough that her legs were stiff and her arms were aching and her back hurt and she just wanted to be anywhere other than crouched next to a motorcycle in the middle of a woodland. 

It was a blessing at least that she seemed to be definitely alone. There were the usual woodland type sounds, wind in the leaves and small critters rustling about and birds somewhere in the distance. Nothing that sounded at all as though it might be a human person coming towards her. It wasn’t much comfort but she was holding on to what she had. 

Most of all she was worried about Wednesday. The noon sun was long past them and they were moving quickly towards what she thought was sometime in the mid to late afternoon. They had intended to be underway within the hour. It hadn’t happened, and she was left wondering if things had gone wrong and she didn’t know, if Wednesday had been taken, if they were slowly surrounding her and waiting to catch her unawares. In any other situation she would have been circling her powers around her, keeping a perimeter as best she could, but that would make too much noise. She was, for the first time since she had discovered her strange gift, entirely unprotected. 

She was beginning to contemplate getting the motorbike back onto the road and trying to figure out how it worked but a strange, pricking feeling in her back stilled her movement. She hardly dared to breathe, certain that there was somebody coming up behind her but too afraid to look. Instead she gathered her power towards her, readying herself to throw it out at whatever came too close. 

“Artemisia?”

The quiet, slightly choked question broke through every barrier that she was building, and she shot to her feet, spinning around so quickly that she had to catch herself on the seat of the bike.

“Wednesday.” It escaped with her breath and she half ran half stumbled towards her friend, forgetting herself as she threw her arms around Wednesday’s stiff shoulders. “I thought they had you.”

There was a pause before she felt two cool hands against her back.

“I thought the same. We need to go. Now.”

Matilda nodded.

“That means you need to let go for a moment, Artemisia.”

She pulled back, feeling the heat in her face. 

“I got the second helmet.” She muttered by way of a response. 

Thankfully, if Wednesday thought anything about the slightly overlong embrace she said nothing about it, instead directing Matilda back to the road while helping her move the hugely awkward motorcycle through the brush. When they finally made it onto the road it was all go. She had a helmet nearly thrown to her as Wednesday threw her leg over the bike as though she had done it a thousand times and turned the key. It roared into life, so loud that Matilda knew without a doubt that every single one of the Valks that were looking for them would know where they were. 

“Get on!” Came the shout over the rumble of the engine. With her chest threatening to burst from the mix of fear and adrenaline she clambered onto the back significantly less gracefully than Wednesday had. The racing of her heart only grew worse when Wednesday leaned back, took her hands, and wrapped them around so that she was leaning forward and nearly touching the fuel tank. “Don’t let go.”

There was no force on earth that could have made her.


	52. Wednesday

Wednesday was trying to focus on the road. Riding at least had come back to her almost immediately, and though the hog was far heavier than anything that she had played around with it was the same basic premise. She just had to keep in control. 

But her mind kept flicking back to the burning hands on her waist, to the body against her back so tightly that she could feel both her heartbeat and Matilda’s and it was all that she could do to keep going. She had never, ever, let someone be so close to her but as they set off she couldn’t imagine those hands being anywhere other than pressed against her. 

The road was moving fast beneath them, and up ahead she could see the thing that she had feared. A bank of Valks standing and looking toward them. They weren’t moving, they weren’t doing anything. They just stood, watching the approach and for the life of her Wednesday couldn’t work out what to do.

Not for the first time she was left astounded at the last minute by the girl at her back. 

“Keep riding.”

It was a bellow that over the engine and the wind was almost impossible to hear, but it was there, and it was all that she needed. She wound the throttle up, clicked down a gear and gave it as much as the bike had towards the wall of Valks. 

At the last moment, when it looked as though they were all going to surge in and stop the bike, everything stopped. It was as though someone had clicked time off and they all froze. Even the roar of the bike seemed less somehow and they breezed right by. She felt the squeeze at her back, and the smile that was forming on her face as she let the bike pull them towards home.


	53. Matilda

She didn’t know quite how she had done it, all she had known was that Wednesday had needed her and her power answered. It had been the way several times before, and every time she had tried to grasp onto something that would let her do it again it was already gone. 

But it had worked and that would have to do because there were already a hundred other problems for them to deal with. One of which being how horribly uncomfortable she was on the back of the bike. She had known, in a way, that she was going to have to be close to Wednesday, but she had not known quite how much that would make her heart race. If it was anyone else sitting up front she would have put it down to the fear of what was happening, but she knew herself better than that. Being close to Wednesday was like standing next to a bolt of lightning as it struck.

Would she have admitted it out loud? Of course not. Would she have ever allowed herself to believe it? Probably not. But there she was, faced with the terrifying realisation that the proximity alone was making her breathless. That given a chance she might not let go. 

What the hell was she going to do with that?

She almost felt lucky that she wasn’t given the chance to think about it for too long. 

Inside the first hour the rumble of engines was behind them and they were getting closer every second. 

“Can you outrun them?” She shouted as loudly as she could over Wednesday’s shoulder. There was just the shake of a head in return. “Can you lose them somehow?” Another shake. 

_Shit._

She had to do something but what? 

“I’m going to do something really stupid!”

There was only a nod in response. 

With a few deep breaths she tried to stop herself from shaking as she took her hands off of Wednesday’s waist and started to push herself backwards. There was a balance to be struck between moving so slowly that she couldn’t do anything and throwing the bike off so that they crashed and she had no idea where the line was. With a hand on Wednesday’s shoulder she used her powers to lift herself just enough to get her leg over the seat leaving her sidesaddle and holding on with only one hand. 

If she had thought that her heart was racing before, it had broken into a sprint by the time she had settled enough to turn and face their followers. 

There were four bikes, all loaded with one rider and one passenger. She squinted. 

“Wednesday,” she yelled, “Wednesday I think they have shotguns!”

She felt the bike pull and accelerate and she gripped tighter into Wednesday’s shoulder to hold on. She couldn’t hold them back indefinitely, that much was certain. Now that she had turned around to look at them the foolish plan that had formed in her head seemed insane. She would never be able to stop them all, not while they were moving. While they were standing still had been some kind of fluke, she was just keeping them in the state that they had already been in, but taking them from one to another, from high speed to nothing? That was either going to be impossible or very dangerous. 

Though they were out to cause harm to her and to the Addams’ clan she really didn’t want to hurt anyone. Wednesday had asked her, when they had set off, if she was ready to hurt someone to protect herself and she had said yes, but twice she had been faced with the option and not been able to do it. Even when they had really hurt her. 

But now there were guns and that changed everything. It had seemed almost petty before. They were just chasing back and forth with no real risk.That had changed. If she could just disarm them…

_Well Matilda, you can disarm them. All you have to do is focus. Flex your power a little. You know that you can do it. Where’s the girl who made cars roll down the street, who took videotapes from dodgy policemen, who floated an enormous portrait half way across a house. Your six year old self could have done this. What are you afraid of now?_

She shook the thoughts away. She knew that she had grown cautious as she had aged, but of course she had. Didn’t everyone? She understood as she got older, as Jenny taught her, how easy it would be to hurt people and she didn’t want that at all. 

Still there was the problem of the shotguns. She stared at the closest bike to them, focusing all of her energies on the weapon in their hands. She didn’t need much, just to work our where their ammunition was. The bike lurched as Wednesday threw it around a corner and Matilda wished that she was holding on with more than just one hand, but her focus returned to the gun. Testing, testing and…got them. 

One by one, as carefully as she could, she took all of the cartridges, slinging them to the verges as they rode. She could see the riders shouting to one another, they were on to her but it was too late. 

“Got rid of the guns.” She shouted to Wednesday who only gave another nod. 

Then it was time for the riders themselves. 

With a deep breath she turned her attention back to the bikes. The wind was picking up, whipping around her and making it difficult to keep her balance as she tugged on the fuel lines. It was going to make all kinds of mess, she knew that, but it should stop them from being hurt if she started at the back. Line after line popped and within seconds the heady smell of petrol filled the air. That would be enough. 

Using all of the strength and power she had left she turned herself back to face the front and, as she wove her hands back around Wednesday’s waist, a shot rang out behind them.

Heat peppered Matilda’s back.

_Missed one_


	54. Wednesday

Wednesday forced herself to keep riding. She had heard the shot, felt Matilda slump suddenly against her, but it would do them no good to stop, to stray straight into their hands. She was shaking, and through she was trying to blink through it she could feel the hot rising of tears in her eyes. It had been years since that had happened.

All she knew is that she had to get back to the manor. Matilda’s heart was still thumping against her back, and that would have to do. Grandmama could fix anything, or anyone for that matter. She just had to get away from the Valks. 

Her Artemisia had been hurt, it was the only thing that she had been afraid of and it was all her fault. She had planned badly, she had dove in head first, she hadn’t looked at what they had been carrying, she hadn’t protected them. 

She hadn’t protected the one person outside of her family who had ever made her feel like she belonged. If she had harboured a hope that Matilda might want to stay with her, that was gone. She knew that it was impossible to want to be around someone who had got you so hurt, who had dragged you into something so terrible. She had blown it, now she just had to get home. Home to free Matilda from the terrible things that had happened, that were probably going to keep happening. Free from her stupidity. 

Then she would have time to deal with her brother.

Pubert. The slimy little weasel. It was one thing to attempt to remove your siblings, that was practically a sport, but to betray your clan to another? That was the worst kind of treason and she would make him pay. 

Just as soon as she worked out where they were. 

As she rode the sound of her perusers faded, and vanished. Whatever Matilda had done before she had passed out, be it from the pain or the use of her powers Wednesday didn’t know, had worked. They weren’t being followed at least for a short while. That would give them a chance to work out where they were at least, and where they needed to go. 

When night came she pulled over at the side of the road and gently eased Matilda off of the bike. 

“Artemisa,” she looked down at the girl, who was almost as pale as an Addams in the moonlight. “Artemisia are you okay?”

“Bastards shot me,” came the mumbled reply. 

Wednesday barked a short laugh. 

“Do you want me to take a look?”

The girl shook her head. 

“I can get them out. It will hurt but I can.”

Wednesday frowned, wishing that she had had the good sense to steal some of the heavy leather jackets when she had been pushing the bike over. She hadn’t thought of a lot of things. 

“Hold on to me, then.”

She took Matilda’s arms and braced them against her shoulders, putting her own hands on the girls waist and looking intently into her eyes.

“Just brace yourself against me and do what you need. Whatever you did to them has worked so we have a little time.”

It was difficult to watch. Matilda flinched and winced and gasped, all the while digging her fingers into Wednesday’s shoulder, but she didn’t pull away. She stayed sitting, solid, being as much as she could be for her injured friend. Finally, 28 little steel balls raised themselves into the air and came to rest in Wednesday’s raised hand. They were bloody, still warm.

“At least they had the mercy to use small gauge,” she spat. “Do you think you can ride on this evening?”

“Yeah. It feels better now that they’re out. But I’m going to be stiff in the morning.”

“I’ll stop as soon as I find somewhere to get plasters and bandages and things. We will patch you up a little.”

“There were painkillers in my bag but…”

“It got left?”

Wednesday sighed as Matilda nodded. They had been running, not thinking, and of course when there was everything else to focus on something was left behind. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, knowing that it did matter a little. At least half of their money had been in that bag. “We will be able to manage.”

They got back on the bike and, even though they had no idea where they were going, rode on into the night.


	55. Matilda

The journey passed in a haze of pain. Matilda was aware of the bike stopping and starting again, of Wednesday helping her down, helping her to eat, half carrying her to a bed somewhere to get some rest. But the world was fuzzy, and she didn’t know if they had travelled for an hour or a day when they finally stopped outside of a familiar building.

“Hey, we’re back.”

She saw the hulking silhouette of Lurch, heard the panic in Wednesday’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. She felt someone huge and gentle lift her, and that was a relief because there seemed to be pain in her legs as well. She didn’t think she had been shot in the legs but there it was. 

Then it was dark for a while. Cool where she had been so, so hot. Someone was singing, that was nice. It smelled like metal and perfume all at once. Where was she? Did it matter?

A voice, cutting through the haze.

“Artemisia?”

That name, her name. Who called her that?

“I don’t think she will wake up for a while yet. You did your best in the circumstances but the infection still took a little. Nasty thing, to poison the shot.”

She peeled open one eye. 

“Of course it was clever of the girl to take them out. Could have been much worse if not for that, though I wonder how she did it. The pain would have been immense.”

“Grandmama-”

“No no there’s nothing to do but wait. You might as well talk to your father, I know he’s been very worried since-”

“Wednesady?”

She heard the word come from her mouth but it didn’t sound like her voice. It sounded dusty, like the voice of a corpse reanimated for one message. 

“Artemisia!” Through the blur of her now fully opened eyes she saw a pale worried face, the raven hair flowing wildly out of it’s braids, and a dark puff around the eyes that were usually so clear.

“Wednesday your hair.”

“You’re awake.”

"It's so, big." 

"What?" 

Then the pain returned, pulsing through her back in long, slow thuds. It was all she could do not to vomit.

“I feel terrible.”

“They shot you.”

“I knew that.”

“Can you move.”

“No she can not.” 

Grandmama leaned into Matilda's view. 

“You're to stay there at least until I can get the skin to knit together a little. The poison is clearly flushing out well, perhaps something to do with your little peculiarity," she winked, "but a bullet wound is just that and I wouldn't have you getting up and wandering about with even one. And you my dear have 28.”


	56. Wednesday

“Pubert!”

Wednesday was bellowing as she walked through the halls, through caring what anyone in the house would think. She was going to find her brother and when she did there was going to be some kind of hell to pay. He had betrayed them, betrayed her, sent her into somewhere that was definitely dangerous without any thought for what might happen. He had sold family secrets and he had sided himself with the worst kind of people and he was going to pay.

At her hand, he would give up any information that he had been hiding. 

“Pubert there is no sense in keeping yourself from me. Come out here _now_.”

“Sister, dear. You sound so very upset.”

She span around, taking swift noisy steps towards him her hands already out. The panic flared in his face too late and she had him against a wall by his neck, near snarling at him. 

“We’re going to go and have a little talk you and I, and you are going to tell me everything that you told them. Once you've done that you’re going to give me all of the information that you have gained about these Valk sisters, including where they are keeping my brother. And then you are going to pack, Pubert. Because I’m not going to let you remain here to continue selling out our people.” 

“Wednesday really.”

“Now.”

She dragged him along with her, pulling him half by his collar and half by his hair toward the armoury. It was the place where all of her experiments lived and she had a feeling that she was going to need them. The Addams’ as a rule were very resilient, they could withstand almost anything without giving up information. It was one of those talents that was really quite necessary when you lived in a world where people were always trying to hurt you. It was unheard of that she was going to use some of her harsher methods on one of her own, but Pubert had left her with no other choice.

He had hurt Matilda. And for that, as far as she was concerned, he deserved far worse than the pain that she was going to inflict upon him. 

“Wednesday, sister, you know I really think you are over reacting. This is a simple case of me doing what all Addams’ children do. I have to get rid of one, I was hoping to get rid of two as part of this deal. You can’t blame me for that.”

“I can blame you for getting people outside of our family involved. I can blame you for siding with them. I can blame you for getting-”

“For the fact that your girlfriend got involved in something that was nothing to do with her in the first place?”

Wednesday kicked open the door to the armoury and half pushed half threw Pubert inside.

“She isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Shame. She’s pretty. Perhaps there are others in these walls who will interest her.”

Pubert smirked at her, and her hand flew on it’s own. A ringing, harsh slap that left her fingers throbbing and a red mark growing on his face. 

With two clicks of a switch that most of the family didn’t even know was there she locked the door. It was time. 

“Let’s see how many fingers you need to lose before you start talking shall we, Pubert?”


	57. Matilda

Against all instructions, after an hour or so of laying in Grandmama’s workroom Matilda stood up. She was feeling surprisingly well and that meant that she needed to go and find Wednesday. It was wrong. She could almost feel Wednesday’s hatred slithering through the house, pulling her to wherever she was questioning her brother. Wednesday had already killed for her, she needed to make sure that it didn’t happen a second time or she might never get her friend back. 

“Thing?” she whispered, hopeful that Grandmama wouldn’t hear her. “Thing I need your help if you’re here.”

She smiled as a muffled scuttling grew louder. 

“There you are.” 

Matilda bent down and scooped The Thing up. 

“Good to see you. I need you to take me to Wednesday, you know where she is don’t you.”

Thing leapt from her hands and barrelled down the corridor, fast enough that Matilda had to jog to keep up. 

“Hold on, I’m not as fast as you!”

She was panting, the pain in her back suddenly much worse than it had been when she had been laying down. But she had to get to Wednesday, it was the only thought in her mind. If she didn’t get to Wednesday soon enough she might do something terrible, and where would that leave them. 

It was selfish, she knew that, but there was something growing between her and the peculiar girl that she wanted to explore. She had never really had friends, let alone anything more than that and she was almost as scared as she was interested in what that could be. But to do that she would have to stop Wednesday from losing herself. 

After a few turns she recognised where The Thing was leading her. Through darkened halls and heavy carpets the lights turned to torches and until finally she was in near complete darkness. They were going to the armoury. That, if nothing else confirmed everything that she had been worried about. If that’s where Wednesday was then she had access to all of the things that the Addams’ had amassed for causing harm through the ages, as well as all of the strange contraptions that had been built since. She increased the pace of her run.

When the finally reached the door she was gasping, the pain in her back and chest making her head spin. 

“Get me in there, Thing.”

Leaning on the wall trying to catch her breath she watched Thing press on the door in a variety of directions, but it didn’t move. 

“Locked?”

He waggled affirmative. 

“My turn then.”

Picking locks was one of the few things that she had practised over the years. It was a useful skill, especially when you had a parent who was prone to locking themselves out of buildings. It took long minutes to work out what to press and pull, but the door finally clicked and swung open. 

“WEDNESDAY!”

She strode through, trying to keep herself steady but feeling the shaking. The room was hot, and a metallic tang reached her nose. She could almost taste it. 

There was a low chuckle from somewhere in the depths, and a wheezing voice that she only just recognised. 

“Looks as though she found you. I wonder if she’ll like you when she sees-”

The words were cut off by a groan of pain. 

“Wednesday, please.”

She kept going, following her nose more than anything. What had Wednesday done?


	58. Wednesday

Wednesday could hear the voice getting closer, but it was too late to hide. Tears were rolling down her face as she inflicted every gruesome punishment she could bring to mind onto Pubert, but he hadn’t cracked.

He had mocked her. Laughed at her. Told her she was pathetic. 

He was right.

“Artemisia. Please. Don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortest Chapter!
> 
> They get longer again after this but I wanted a bit of a gut punch. So, sorry about that? 
> 
> I am fully expecting y'all to hate me until Thursday and that's okay. I hate me a little bit for making Wednesday feel bad too.
> 
> I promise that this pain now is worth it, and will all be better in two days time!
> 
> Love and words,
> 
> Kat


	59. Matilda

Matilda saw the blood before she saw Wednesday. She tried not to look too closely at the lumps that were in the blood. At least she had a strong stomach. 

“Wednesday.”

Looking at her friend was the thing that almost broke her. She was hunched, splattered with crimson, her hair an unkempt mess.

And she was crying. 

“Wednesday come here.”

She was met with the shake of a head. 

“I’m not giving you an option. Please.”

With a shaking hand she wove her fingers through Wednesday’s long pale ones, and tugged her back from where Pubert was laying, laughing. 

“Artemisia. I didn’t want you to see-”

“It’s okay. Once you’re okay it will be okay.”

The thumping in her chest was back, and everything in her body was telling her what she needed to do. There was no thought, nothing but Wednesday’s tear filled eyes and the hammering that was moving steadily up into her throat. 

She tugged again on the hand, pulling Wednesday in closer. With the other hand she swept some of the wayward raven hair out of Wednesday’s face and tipped her chin so that their eyes met. 

“It’s okay.”

Wednesday shook her head, and Matilda sighed. 

“You could have been-”

“Idiot.”

The word escaped her, and she moved before she had time to think herself out of it. She pulled Wednesday’s face towards her own, stepping up onto tip toes so that she could reach and let her lips find Wednesday’s cool skin. 

There was the brief taste of metal, and then Wednesday pulled her in closer and pressed into the kiss. Matilda’s hands found her hair and she wasn’t sure how long they stayed there. 

“Excuse me, bleeding over here?”

Matilda didn’t want to break away. But what Wednesday had started she needed to finish. 

“Wednesday, go and tell your mother what we know. I need to have a conversation with your brother.”

“But-”

“No buts. Go. I’ll be along soon.”

She pulled Wednesday in for one last, gentle kiss and then pushed her towards the door. 

Once she was safely alone she took a breath, steeled herself for what she was going to do, and rounded on Pubert. 

“Now then.” From inside her pocket she pulled out the 28 little pellets that she had removed from her back. “I wonder what it feels like to be shot in slow motion.”

There was a moment of terrible satisfaction as she saw the panic flash over Pubert’s face. 

“Unless you want to tell me everything that Wednesday wanted to know?”

“You think you can succeed where she failed?” There was a quiver to his voice, and his eyes hadn’t left the gently floating pellets. She could feel the pain returning in her back, she shouldn't be there, she wasn't ready. But she had to. She drew the pain up, pulled it around herself and let it settle, just like it always had. She knew how to use pain.

Matilda took a step closer, bringing her face very close to Pubert’s.

“You think you’re strong enough to withstand Valk poison?”

“Now just-”

“Let’s find out.”

The first ball flew, striking Pubert in the top of his arm, and began burrowing itself under his skin. 

“One down.”

She knew that his screams would be with her forever, but mercifully it had only taken two of the pellets. She had used her powers to harm, worse she had felt the old anger that her father had wielded so often rise in her. His hatred, his desire to cause harm for his own ends. For the smallest moment, she had enjoyed it. That could never happen again. She couldn't let herself become...but Wednesday had been breaking. Her strong wonderful Wednesday. She would sooner lose herself to the curse of her family than see Wednesday cry ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!
> 
> This is the chapter that I think we were all hoping for (and the one that I am hoping will grant me a little forgiveness for the various painful previous chapters). 
> 
> So let's yell about it! Did you expect it to be Matilda who made the first move? Are you surprised that she ended up being the stronger one of the two? What do you think is going to happen to Pubert? (I LOVE reading your theories on all of this.)
> 
> There's a lot more to come, and I hope you will enjoy being on the rest of this roller coaster.
> 
> With love and words
> 
> Kat


	60. Wednesday

Wednesday stood with her back to the armoury door, her heart pounding in her ears and a still bloodied hand at her lips. Matilda had kissed her. She had found her lost in the horror of what she was failing to do and she had brought her back with a kiss. She had wanted to end it all there, to take her by the hand and leave the family with their troubles to find out if there was more where that kiss had come from. 

But Matilda had sent her away instead, and had begun to do what she hadn’t been strong enough to. She didn’t know how, and she wasn’t sure that her family would forgive Matilda for it, but it was for the greater good of the clans. 

When she could no longer bear the sound she walked slowly back up to the main lounge where her mother was sitting, seemingly waiting for her. 

“Mother.”

“Wednesday. I trust your friend has recovered? Grandmama suggested that it was quite serious.”

“It was,” Wednesday sat down into the plush black sofa and sagged a little with it. “We need to gather the clans, any who are loyal to us. They have declared war, and it’s time for us to put an end to them once and for all.”

“Now Wednesday-”

“Mother, no. You know as well as I do that we have put them back into their place several times but they keep getting back up and now they have targeted it as us. They shot at us. Poisoned buckshot. It could have killed…”

“As terrible as that is, it’s not something that we can declare war over.”

“They have also kidnapped Pugsley.”

She frowned as her mother sighed and turned to face her slightly more. 

“Wednesday, have you considered the notion that he might actually want to marry one of the Valk sisters? That this isn’t what you believe it to be?”

Wednesday wanted to scream, to take the overstuffed velvet pillows and throw them. To knock everything off shelves and yell until someone listened. She wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t imagining things. She knew exactly what was happening, what Pubert and Pugsley had done but she was being treated like a child. No, they had listened to her more when she was a child. 

“If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.” She pulled the very crumpled letter out from the pocket of her dress and thrust it onto her mother’s lap. “Pubert has betrayed us. The Valks are using unacceptable means to get what they want, and Pugsley is going to be victim of it all.”

While her mother read Wednesday looked at the door, lost in her own thoughts. Finally she was brought back by the quiet clearing of a throat.

“I will talk to your father. I think you should go back to Grandmama and check on your friend.”

She stood without a word and left her mother with the damning evidence. She only hoped that Matilda was safe down below. Her brother was as devious as he was clever and that was a terrible combination to have for an enemy. 

Aimless, Wednesday wandered the halls of her ancestral home. Countless generations of Addams’ had lived there, worked there, honed their craft and raised the profile of their clan. It could all be ruined on the back of one son. What would her ancestors have done? What would her great aunt have done? She didn’t know. 

“Wednesday?”

The soft voice sent her heart to racing. 

“Artemisia?”

She rushed to the sound of the voice, catching Matilda as she stumbled from around the corner. 

“I know where they are.”

She looped her arm around Matilda’s waist, pulling her in close and acting as a support as they walked. 

“I’m taking you to lay down,” she said, trying not to let her voice shake, “and then you can tell me everything.”

A soft mass of brown hair hit her shoulder, and she felt Matilda nod. 

For the next few hours, that was all she needed.


	61. Matilda

It was such an enormous relief to lay down. She had pushed herself far too hard and she knew that. Between the injury, the enormous amount of control it had taken to use her powers so much and the smell of blood still clogging her nostrils she was entirely done in. 

“I think I just need to be here for a while,” she murmured, nestling down into the guest bed that seemed to have been made up once more in Wednesday’s room. “Just until the world stops spinning.”

She felt the pressure of Wednesday sitting on the edge, and a cool hand pushed some of her hair out of her face. Without thinking she leaned into it. She had done a lot of things without thinking, and they were going to need to talk about them eventually. But she was just so tired. 

“Artemisia, don’t go to sleep.”

“Why?”

“I need to know what he told you.”

“Everything.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I’m so tired Wednesday.” It was difficult to even keep her eyes open. Though she had never experimented with using her powers to exhaustion she was very aware that if she pushed herself it would make her tired, and she had been pushing for days. There had been no real time to rest, no time to feel safe. There wasn’t even the energy left to speak. “Just a quick nap.”

She felt the shift as Wednesday moved away from her and then there was darkness as sleep finally came to her. She didn’t know how long she rested for, but when she woke up she was tucked under a warm black woollen blanket and there was a glass of something familiar and green sitting next to her. With a slightly aching arm she reached out took the glass, downing the contents in one long gulp. The drink burned and sent her into a fit of coughs which drew a chuckle from the corner of the room. 

“You aren’t really supposed to drink it that quickly you know.”

“Wednesday?”

“You’re been out for a few hours. I was starting to worry that you were going to sleep all the way through.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after dinner.”

“Wednesday I-”

“Later. Pubert has…been put somewhere for safe keeping by my father. But he won’t speak. Tell me everything.” There was an intensity to Wednesday’s face that told Matilda that she couldn’t really put off the matter again. She didn’t want to think about what she had done in the armoury. She had felt the anger burn through her in a way that it never had before, her powers were somehow easier to wield but felt wrong. All wrong. It was as though some darkness had taken her and she had, just for a second, enjoyed what she had done. Was that the truth of her heritage? Were her people wiped out for being monsters?

Matilda eased herself up. 

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“I don’t know what know what you did,” Wednesday said. “Something tells me that neither of us want to think about that. I just need to know where they’re keeping my brother.”

“Well,” Matilda sighed. “The good news is that we have saved a lot of time in not going to the lighthouse.”

“So it really is just a myth?”

“Yes and no. The bad news is that that’s where they’re taking Pugsley.”

“What?”

“Unless it’s some kind of double bluff, which I don’t think it is, that’s where they are setting up. It does belong to them but it’s been left dormant for a long time. It seems that they decided the best thing to do would be to work out where we thought they were, turn us away from that path and then go there. Because once we had counted it out…”

“I see.”

“He also said, perhaps it makes more sense to you than me, something about knowing all about me. About them having methods of dealing with ‘freaks’ like me. The Sefeth?”

She was half hoping that Wednesday wouldn’t know who they were, but the hiss that met the name told her more than enough. 

“That man. The one that I…stopped. He was Sefeth. They press into your mind, rattle around until they find your weakness and use it against you. As far as we knew there weren’t many of them left. But it seems that we may have been wrong.”

“Why would he say that I’m a freak, though?” That had been playing on her more than most of the rest of the things that he had said. Over and over he called her a freak. As though she was something that warranted either study of disposal. 

“I don’t know. Perhaps he thought that it would be the thing that would break you. Pubert is…cruel that way.”

Matilda nodded. 

“There were some other things but I don’t know how important they are. Locations of smaller groups that are siding with the Valks, the names of some people who have put themselves on one side or the other. He mentioned something about the Itt family and stopping their meddling as part of it all.”

That drew a gasp from Wednesday and Matilda was almost sorry that she had to be the bearer of such bad news. 

“There is one thing that’s for sure. He doesn’t know of anyone else like me, and they seem to be afraid of what I can do. And I’m with you on this, Wednesday. I don’t really have family, I don’t have a home like this. You’re the closest thing I’ve had for a good long while and I’m prepared to go all of the way with this fight. I’m ready to stand beside you, if you’ll have me.”

She couldn’t quite meet Wednesday’s eye, a blush rising in her face when she thought about what standing by Wednesday indefinitely might mean. So when the cold hand found her cheek she jumped a little, and her eyes flicked up to a strangely smiling face. 

“Artemisia Wormwood-Honey, I can’t think of anyone better to have with me.”

There was the briefest flicker of mischief behind Wednesday’s eyes, and then Matilda found herself lost in a long, wonderful kiss. 

Who knew what the next few days were going to bring. They were going to war. But if getting shot at meant that Wednesday would keep kissing her, then she would be shot at every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> I just wanted to drop in and let you know that I have started uploading a brand new work of original fiction here on A03!
> 
> Ghost Girls is a silly fun little project about a girl and her ghost roommate and if you are enjoying Addamswood you might enjoy that too?
> 
> You can find it here: http://bit.ly/GhostGirlsNovel should you be interested!
> 
> Anyway, back to scheduled internal screaming.
> 
> With love and words,
> 
> Kat


	62. Wednesday

Wednesday wasn’t sure what they were going to do. She knew that they would need a proper amount of help if they were to really take on the Valk clans, but she also didn’t want to have to ask anyone. Her way had always been to figure things out on her own but now there was Matilda in the mix and if she could lean on one person then perhaps she could lean on others.

She looked over to where Matilda was laying, only an inch from her. They hadn’t talked about what had happened. About the first short kiss and then far longer one after it. There was that worry in the back of her mind that, if she asked about it, it would stop being real and she desperately wanted it to be real. At least for a while longer. There was a warmth that came from Matilda that was unlike anything else in her cold world. 

“Artemisia?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry you had to do that for me.” She had wanted to say it a hundred times. While Matilda had been sleeping she had been restless, frowning and grumbling. It hadn’t been the kind of screaming nightmare that she had always been fascinated by, but a restless pain that she could hardly bare to see. “I should never have-”

“You didn’t ask me, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Wednesday rolled over onto her side, so that her nose was no more than an inch away from Matilda's and tried to resist the urge to just pull her into a kiss again. 

“But-”

“No buts, Wednesday. If I hadn’t thought it needed to be done, I wouldn’t have. I knew that you couldn’t truly hurt your brother, and you shouldn’t have had to.”

It was difficult to keep eye contact so close, so she kept her eyes on the curve of Matilda’s lips, the colour in her cheeks, the subtle smell of her shampoo. In a pair of Wednesday’s pyjamas that were just a little too large for her. Every detail taken in just to avoid having to look up into the bright, honest eyes that would tell her too much.

“Do you think we will really be able to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Go to war with the Valks. Get my brother back. Stop Pubert from betraying us all again. Make it home in time for dissertation submission.”

“Wednesday, I think you and I both know that we are going to have to retake this year. But I think that we can make it. I don’t know how yet, but I think it’s possible. We’ve got this far haven’t we?” She felt the hand find the bottom of her chin, just as it had in the armoury, “and we have each other.”

“I suppose we do.”

She smiled as Matilda bumped a warm nose against her own. 

“Now, I think it’s high time I ate something. I can’t survive on Wormwood alone, and, though I hate to say it, you are looking a little pale Wednesday dear. Perhaps a warm meal will perk you up.”

With a groan and a shove she got up from the bed, trying to be as gentle as possible in helping Matilda to her feet. 

“If you keep making jokes like that I’ll think twice about bringing you along, Artemisia.”

But Matilda just laughed. 

“I would like to see you try and stop me.”


	63. Matilda

Dinner was a very sombre affair, far more so than Matilda had ever seen it before. The Addams’ were suddenly living up to their aesthetic, dour and gloomy and quiet at the table. There was none of the revelry of the previous times that she had eaten with them, none of the silliness and conversation. It was just a quiet meal, with two empty places at the table. 

Matilda didn’t know where to look. She was worried, more than she would have cared to admit, that she had crossed a line in taking over the questioning of Pubert. Of course, some logical part of her knew that if she wasn’t welcome she certainly wouldn’t be eating at their table no matter how good of a host Morticia was, but it didn’t still the worry. She had started to feel as though she was becoming part of the family but that had been shaken too. 

“So.” The quiet was interrupted by Wednesday putting down her cutlery in a startlingly loud clatter. “What are we going to do?”

There was silence, as the Addams all looked at one another. Matilda wasn’t sure where to look. She knew what she would have said, but it wasn’t her house and it wasn’t her table and the only thing for her to do was wait. 

“What do you mean, Wednesday?” Morticia’s voice was very low. 

“You can’t tell me, after seeing what you have seen, that we are going to do nothing?”

Gomez slammed his cup down. “We are going to protect what we have, Wednesday. We are going to do what we do well and look after what we have here, in this house.”

“But-”

“No buts, Wednesday. Enough is enough. We have lost one son and another may never come back to us. What we do now is regroup.”

The table fell silent again, but Matilda felt eyes on her. Looking up she saw Grandmama, across the other side of the table, eyes fixed, focused. 

_Matilda._

She blinked. That voice wasn’t hers. Was it?

_So your barriers can be broken. Interesting. I was beginning to think that you were impossible to get through to. Listen and say nothing._

Matilda gave the smallest of nods. The table itself was still silent. 

_Our family is on the brink of disaster, Matilda. You know this as well as I but you have no voice here. I will help you where I can, but I need time to contact the clans. The Matriarchs will rise if it is asked of them. But we are not as swift as you young ones. You know where to go, I can see it all mapped out in here. Such a fascinating mind, I hope that you will allow me to poke around a little more when you come back._

It was difficult for Matilda to focus on her food with the voice speaking directly into her, but she did her best to act as though nothing was happening. She also tried to keep her eyes off of Grandamama for fear of burning up in the intensity of the stare. 

_Take Wednesday with you, tonight. She knows how to leave without being seen. Pack what you can, I will leave a bag outside of the door. We will meet you out there just as soon as we can._

With a sudden strange cold sucking feeling her mind was her own again. As she looked up Grandmama winked at her, then loudly announced that it was time for desert. 

Matilda reached under the table and found one of Wednesday’s cool hands. She linked their fingers and gave a squeeze. If Grandmama wanted them to go, then go they would and she had a feeling that it was going to be very interesting.


	64. Wednesday

Wednesday went to bed feeling more hopeless than she ever had. Her parents knew the truth and instead of going after Pugsley they were going to close house and hope that it all went away. In what century had that been the Addams way? She stormed back to her bedroom, barely noticing that Matilda was at her heels. 

“You are going to need to calm down.” Matilda’s voice was gentle and it made Wednesday start. 

“I don’t think it’s the time to be calm.”

“It is, Wednesday. Listen. I had a conversation with your Grandmama at the table.”

Wednesday listened as Matilda explained the bizarre events that had taken place right under her nose. It seemed that at least one of the Addams’ was thinking about things the right way. 

“But, the matriarchs are all…well…old. Artemisia can you imagine a group of women all Grandmama’s age? They’re not going to be any use to us at all.” She flopped onto the bed, dragging her hands down her face with a huff. “This is pointless.”

“If you think that there’s no power left in your Grandmama then I think you should stop calling yourself an Addams right now Wednesday.” 

She sat up. 

“Or do you think just anyone can get their way into someone’s mind to be able to have a fully fledged conversation with them?”

“I suppose-”

“Wednesday Addams you are wallowing and it’s getting boring. I need that old Wednesday back, the one who was looking forward to being burned as a witch. The one who made me search a dusty old decoy house for hours because she was too stubborn to give it up. I need my Wednesday, not whoever this impostor is.”

There was nothing to do but smile, and reach a hand out to the steadily fuming girl that stood in front of her. 

“You know, that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I’m not trying to be romantic, Wednesday.”

“I know,” she smiled, pulling Matilda down to sit next to her on the bed, “but you’re doing an excellent job.”

She wanted to kiss her again. She wanted to do very little else when it came right down to it. 

“Artemisia, we haven’t talked about this at all,” she gestured between them, hoping that what she was saying made sense. “And I didn’t want to spoil it by asking but if what you’re saying is true and we’re walking into the fire tomorrow I think we probably should.”

“Should what?”

“Talk about it.”

She shuffled an inch back, so that she could properly face Matilda. She was what anyone in her family would have called plain, but there was a spark behind her eyes that Wednesday had been fascinated by on the first day that they met. Strength enough to out stare an Addams was a very special thing indeed. 

“What is there to talk about?”

“Well…”

“I wanted to kiss you, Wednesday, from about the third hour that I spent with you. I wanted to see your hair out of those braids and find out if your skin was really as cold as it looked like it was. I wanted to know if you were as hard as you looked but I didn’t have the guts to do anything about it. But when I saw you all but falling apart standing in the armoury I knew that it was the time, because it was all going to hell anyway so why the hell not.”

Wednesday could feel herself blushing. There was an intensity in the way that Matilda was looking at her that she wasn’t sure that she could meet, but she did her best, and had to smile when as soon as her eyes flickered away she felt the warm press of lips on hers. 

“I wanted that too,” she murmured through the kiss. “When I saw you dancing for the first time, that was when I really knew.”

“You mean when I was awkwardly stumbling around trying not to stand on your father?”

“You were perfect.”

She pulled Matilda in closer, letting them fall back into her sheets. There was a really good chance that it was all going to end, and that made her impulsive in a way that she had never expected to be. She had seen her parents through every passionate, romantic conversation. She had known since she was a child how it all worked. But being there, in that space, with the electricity running between them her hands were shaking. 

“Wednesday Addams, why do I get the feeling that you’re nervous?”

“It might be because I’m nervous.” The words came out breathy. 

“I would never have guessed. All of the scary things in this house and it’s me that worries you?”

She had to laugh, it was an astute truth that broke a lot of the tension of the moment. 

“Shut up and kiss me again, Artemisia.”

And she did, and it was wonderful. Her hands kept shaking, her breath stayed short, and even though the world was falling apart around them she was the happiest that she had ever been.


	65. Matilda

Matilda lay, swathed in black sheets, watching Wednesday breathe. It was getting later and later and as much as she knew that she needed to sleep her mind was racing. For a while she had been able to shut it all off. She had been able to lay with Wednesday and explore what they wanted to feel for one another without thinking for even a second about the fact that they had to leave. But the time was getting shorter and they did have to leave. 

Finally she heard what she was waiting for, a very small low thump outside of the door that she hoped was Grandmama dropping off the bag that she had promised them. What she would have packed Matilda had no idea. There was a maverick strangeness about Grandmama that made the rest of the Addams clan look sane, dull even, and Matilda half expected there to be a lizard in the bag. 

Slowly, trying to let Wednesday rest for as long as she could, she eased her arm out from under the swathes of raven hair (she had realised very quickly why it always lived in the braids) and padded to the door. It creaked open with a long dramatic sound that seemed to be built into every door in the Addams’ residence and she froze.

“Artemisia?” It was a sleepy grumble from somewhere under the chaos of black that she had left behind. 

“I’m coming back hold on.”

She grabbed the bag and dragged it into the room, letting the door groan closed again. 

“Come back to bed. It’s cold.”

“You’re always cold,” she said, smiling at the fragment of sleepy face that she could see. “And it’s time to get up.”

“It’s still dark,”

“I know. Up.”

She took hold of the bottom of the sheets and tugged them down until they were all the way off. 

“Hey!”

“Shh.”

With a cheeky toss of her powers she threw the sheets back. 

“We have to go.”

She was already pulling on spare clothes from the random selection of Wednesday’s things that would vaguely fit her. It was as though Morticia had been keeping any black garment that had ever come into the house for such an occasion and there were some odd combinations. She found floor length gypsy style skirts hanging with button down shirts, short shorts that she could not imagine Wednesday ever wearing and dresses in an array of lengths and styles. She had seen Wednesday in a few of them but there were so many there. She took as many of them as she could grab at once off of the hangers and stuffed them into Grandmama’s bag.

“Can’t we just spend a _little_ more time in bed?”

There was a smirk in Wednesday’s voice and Matilda was half tempted to turn and see what she was up to, but thought better of it. Any small distraction would stall them, and they couldn’t afford that. They needed to move before the sun started to come up. 

“As much as I _want_ to get back into bed with you Wednesday, if you don’t get up and get dressed I’m going to be forced to use my powers to clothe you myself. And it won’t be the dresses from your end of the wardrobe.”

There was a snort and a grumble but she heard Wednesday getting up. For a night owl she had expected Wednesday to be more excited to be up while the moon was full. The night had been full of surprises, though, and she was learning more and more every minute. 

It took them nearly a half hour to be ready to leave, twenty minutes of which was combing the tangles out of Wednesday’s hair.

“You’re lucky that I can wield six combs at once or this would be a nightmare.” Matilda said as she worked on length after length of sleek black. There was so much more of it than she had expected. “But it does beg the question of why do you even have so many combs?”

“Have you seen all of this? It goes through them like you wouldn’t believe. Cousin Itt always told me to keep several on hand, and he would be the one to know.”

“Does he have a lot of hair?”

“Right down to the floor.”

Finally the braids were back and they were ready to go. 

“You’re going to want to hold on to me,” Wednesday said, shocking Matilda with a wink. “Or you’ll get lost in the tunnels.”

Before Matilda really knew what was happening Wednesday had took her around the waist, yanked on a curtain cord and they were plummeting into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> I just wanted to pop in and say that I hope you are all doing okay in this tricky time. It's a scary world right now and I hope that you are taking care of yourselves and your loved ones.
> 
> It is my hope to provide at least one small slice of stability through all of this. 
> 
> Addamswood will not stop updating. The schedule will not change.
> 
> I will be working from home a lot of the time now but as long as I have some kind of internet connection I will get this story out to you all. 
> 
> If you are looking for more places to browse the internet - let's be honest we are all going to have a lot of free time on our hands - I will drop some links to my social media spaces, plus some stories that I just love below. 
> 
> Let's stick together to ride this thing out, yeah?
> 
> With love and words,
> 
> Kat
> 
> https://twitter.com/VKatCosplay1   
https://www.instagram.com/vkatcosplay/?hl=en   
https://www.wattpad.com/story/143367728-bound-little-bird   
https://www.wattpad.com/story/87245629-ardent-book-one


	66. Wednesday

Sneaking out of the mansion with Matilda was easy, it was the rest of the road that was going to be hard. She wasn’t able to take the car because the family would need it, she couldn’t take The Thing as a guide even though she was sure that he would be helpful. It was just whatever Grandmama had prepared and whatever they could think of on the way. 

The good news was that someone had refueled the motorbike. She looked over to Matilda half excited and half hoping that she would be told that she could think of something else. But it was the best vehicle they had, it was quick, it was unassuming, they could go almost anywhere.

“Well this solves one problem.”

“If only we had a map.”

“Artemisia are you a child of this century or not? We have phones.”

She pulled out her phone and waved it at Matilda. She had loaded up maps, locations of places to stay, places to eat on the way. She'd had a lot of time while Matilda was combing out her hair to figure out where they were going, and a map was going to be invaluable, especially when you considered their last foray into the wild.

“Fine. But do we have enough power to use it?”

“We can make stops. It will be fine. Now, get on. You’re wasting time Artemisia.”

She knew that she was being overly cheerful, but things were falling into place. They had a good plan, supplies, a motorcycle, and each other. They were so much further than they had been, and they hadn’t even left home. 

All she had to do was keep them alive along the way.

“Wednesday if we are going to be getting onto that thing again do we think that perhaps I could pop back inside for a jacket?” Matilda was hesitating a few paces behind the motorcycle, looking at it as though it might jump out and bite her. 

It was a fair fear, the last time she had been on the back of the bike she had been shot. 

“Give me a moment.”

With two fingers in her mouth she let out a long, shrill whistle that made Matilda jump and probably woke up half the dogs in the neighbourhood. Behind her Matilda started to speak but she put her hand up, closed her eyes and waited. Within moments she heard the footfall of tiny running fingers.

The Thing was almost frantic as he arrived, trying to sign a hundred things at once with half of them being ‘where are you going’ and Wednesday had a hard time getting him to calm down so that she could talk to him. Eventually she managed to get through.

“Thing, please listen, yes we are going for a while but we will come back and before you ask no you cannot come. They need you here. But I do need your help. Artemisia needs a jacket, a thick one. Leather if mother has one and she needs it right now. Will you bring one?”

With an excited yes he started back into the house. Wednesday had no idea what he would bring back, but she turned with an attempt to reassure Matilda anyway.

“The Thing always come through with something. It might not be what we asked for but it will work. He’s good at that.”

She got only a small smile in reply. 

“I’m going to do my best to make sure nothing hurts you.”

“You can’t promise that, Wednesday. I don’t think we should pretend that you can. Just like I can’t promise to keep you safe.”

Wednesday nodded. It wasn’t like her to be the hopeful one, but Matilda was very right. 

It didn’t take long for Thing to come back, dragging along what looked like her uncles leather apron, a velvet coat and half a curtain in a small cart. It was a peculiar collection but Wednesday could see that he had done his best and thanked him. 

“Okay,” she said, picking up the apron. “This under the coat I think, we will have to fold it so that it doesn’t drag but it’s good and thick. Plus it will be doubled up.” She slipped it over Matilda’s head, then eased her into the plush velvet coat. It was slightly too big for her but very endearing. “Feel better?”

“As good as I’ll get.”

“Then we should be off.” She turned back to The Thing. “Thank you, Thing. I’ll see you when I get home. Grandmama knows where I am, so any questions direct them to her. And don’t follow us. Got it?”

There was a brief salute and then The Thing was running back towards the manor, his cart speeding behind him. 

“Let’s go raise some hell.”


	67. Matilda

Matilda hated the motorcycle.

She hated it so much that she had been tempted to cancel the entire journey if she had to get back on it. But Wednesday was right that it was the best and only way for them to get where they were going, and at least they had a map so they had a finite end to the journey. If they made it that far. 

It didn’t help that she was looking for danger every second of the way. She was testing every person, vehicle, door, tree, suspicious patch of earth that they passed and the energy that it was taking was already tiring. They had planned a stop so she hoped to be able to sleep some of it off, but it felt necessary. It was all too simple, that they would just be able to turn up unseen and storm whatever building the Valks were in. It felt like a trap, and she expected the road to be tapped. Pubert had told them that it wouldn’t be but the more she thought about it the more that seemed like a bluff. He had lead them into danger once, what was to say that they wouldn’t again?

So much was her worry that she couldn’t even enjoy being so close to Wednesday. The first few minutes had been as exciting as the last time but an hour in her ass was numb and her back ached and she was cold from the wind and she just wanted to get off. 

By the time the sun was only coming up she was near desperate to have her feet on the ground. She tapped Wednesday on the shoulder, the agreed signal that she needed a break, and waited for the next place that they could pull over. 

“You okay?” The question was asked as soon as Wednesday had shut the engine off. 

“I would be better if my lower half hadn’t turned to stone. I just need to walk it off for a second, and get a drink.”

She levered herself off the bike and stretched, amazed by how stiff she was. It was almost worse once she had gotten off and the pins and needles started in her thighs. They had stopped at a small roadside cafe that looked like it had barely opened with the morning sun. A bent over old woman smiled with all gums at Matilda as she walked through the door. 

“Early morning ride is it?” 

“Good morning. Yes. Are you open?”

“We are now.”

It looked as though she was going to say something more, but Matilda felt Wednesday’s hand made icy by the wind on her shoulder and there was something about the way that the womans face changed that told Matilda that Wednesday was giving the woman a mistrusting look. 

“In that case,” she said trying to ignore the slight tightening of the grip on her shoulder, “could I please order two cups of tea and whatever breakfast sandwiches you do. Meat based if you have it.”

The woman scribbled something on a pad and hobbled away, leaving Matilda and Wednesday to find themselves a seat. It was the kind of cafe that looked as though it had been made from bits and pieces that had been collected over a long period of time. Mismatched chairs and odd tables and strange little trinkets all over the place. In any other situation Matilda would have liked it, but circumstances were making her as suspicious as Wednesday seemed to be. 

“We won’t stop long,” she said, seeing how stiffly Wednesday was sitting, “but I just need to eat, and so do you.”

“It’s fine. I guess it’s better to be a little hidden than on the road during peak times. And I am quite hungry.”

“Are you worried that they’re watching us?” Matilda asked, settling herself back into the squishy armchair that she had chosen. “Because I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“I-” Wednesday stopped to rise and take the tray of tea and sandwiches from the hands of the shaking elderly woman. “Thank you.”

“Do you dears need anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

They waited until they were alone to start talking again, the sounds of cooking coming from the small cafe kitchen. 

“Artemisia I am going to be worried that we are being watched, that we are being followed, that there will be traps and troubles and that they will be expecting us until we are done and out and home. I think that’s just something that we will have to get used to for a while.” Matilda reached out to take Wednesday’s hand, joining their fingers while Wednesday went on. “We have a long way to go and I think that the more time we spend not on the road the worse that it might get. The more time they have to prepare. It will be a difficult balance.”

Matilda sighed, picking at her sandwich with a sudden strange lack of hunger. 

“I have been thinking the same things. It’s a lot.”

Wednesday just nodded.

There was nothing much more to say, so they spent the rest of the time in slightly uncomfortable silence. The tea was good at least and there was more than enough for two cups each. They forced down as much breakfast as they could manage, left enough cash on the table to cover the bill, waved goodbye to the toothless woman behind the counter and got back onto the road.

For a while Matilda pulled her powers in and wound them around herself and Wednesday, leaning her head against Wednesday’s back and letting herself just breathe. There was a lot of trouble to come, and she decided that she might as well at least enjoy the small moments that she could. She didn’t know how many of them she would have left.


	68. Wednesday

Wednesday hated the motorcycle.

It gave her too much space inside her own head, nothing but the road and the wind noise and the little voice in her earphones that told her when to turn. Through her entire life there had always been something to make, seething to build, something to do. But on the bike there was none of that and she didn’t quite know what to do with it. Her head wasn’t the best place to be inside of. 

Half of the time it was full of thoughts of the night before, of finally letting Matilda through a lot of her walls and doing something that she had been too afraid to do. The rest of the time it was full of fear, worry, memories and regret. She had had the worst week that she could remember in a lot of ways and the jeers from Pubert were ringing in her ears any time that something else wasn’t there. 

What was happening to her family? What was happening to her?

More than anything she didn’t know if she was strong enough to do what needed to be done. She had been so sure that she would have been but when it came to it Matilda had saved her twice. Matilda who had come to her family as a complete outsider, who had a power that wasn’t known to anyone in the clans, who had been just a girl in a pinafore dress with an Alice band in her hair. 

Even after everything Wednesday hadn’t had the nerve to ask where Matilda had come from. She had met Jenny, the adoptive parent who Matilda almost never talked about but it was clear that there was very little of her personality that could be attributed to the plan woman. It was something deeper and Wednesday was desperate to dig, but terrified to know. 

The next time they stopped the sun was setting, and they needed fuel. She pulled into the first place that she could find that would let them fill up and signalled to Matilda that they were going to stay there for at least a little while. She was exhausted from focusing on the road all day, and the map thought there were 16 hours still to ride. She would be able to press on for a while longer but they needed to find a place to stay sooner rather than later. 

“Artemisia. Can you look for a resting place in the area? A pub with rooms. A travel lodge? Anywhere that’s not too expensive and won’t ask too many questions. I’m going to go and pay for fuel and get some snacks”

She didn’t want for a reply further than the helmeted nod before striding into the small petrol station. 

It had a peculiar smell and Wednesday hesitated before approaching the counter. There was something wrong about the place, something that made her want to leave as soon as possible. She didn’t even look for snack foods, didn’t pick up drinks, she had made certain to fill up to a round amount so the payment was simple. She placed a note on the counter, said “pump 3” and walked out. 

“I think I have-”

“Get on. Tell me next set of lights. I want to get out of here.”

She risked a glance behind her as she pulled on her helmet. The boy at the counter was looking at them, and he was talking to someone but she couldn’t see who. 

Without waiting a moment longer she swung herself onto the bike and, with Matilda clinging to her, roared down the road. 

They stopped again for the night at a middle of nowhere inn that had a single room free for so little money Wednesday wondered what was wrong with it, but they asked no questions at all as they passed over the key, and the strange feeling that she had felt in the petrol station was about as far as it was possible to get from the atmosphere inside.

Wednesday ordered two meals to take up to the room, and then she and Matilda hauled themselves upstairs.


	69. Matilda

Matilda hardly noticed what she was eating, or how the room was laid out. The food was hot, the water warm, and the bed the most comfortable thing in the world after the day that they had had. 

“Artemisia, should one of us stay awake?”

“No,” she mumbled, already on her way to sleep. “If someone comes in I’ll know before they get the door fully open. Don’t worry.” She stretched her arms out, waiting for Wednesday to curl up with her as had happened the night before, but the expected pressure didn’t come and she prised her eyes open again. “Wednesday? You need to come to bed.”

“There was something wrong in that petrol station. I could feel it. Something strange. What if they’re coming?”

“Then we will deal with it when they come,” Matilda yawned. “We can’t do any good when we’re this tired. Please, come to bed. It’s nicer with you in it.”

Her words drew a smile from Wednesday, and though she took a moment to latch the door and push a chair against it, she did make her way into Matilda’s waiting arms.

The morning light was harsh and Matilda found herself flinching away from it, feeling almost hung over though she was certain that she hadn’t drank anything other than water and tea. Her head pounded and she was hungry and there was a dismay at finding herself once again waking up away from home. For a moment she missed her blue walls, she missed her books. She missed the sounds of Jenny making breakfast.

Then she rolled over and saw Wednesday, still deep in sleep, breathing steadily. The perpetual frown gone with sleep, her pale skin smooth and perfect. Matilda hated to wake her, but there was nothing else to do. They needed breakfast and they needed to move on.

“Wednesday,” she whispered, running a finger down the length of Wednesday’s pointed nose. “Time to get back on a motorcycle.”

They breakfasted on leftovers from the night before, made their way back downstairs and were out of the doors before they had seen another person. 

The ride that day was as arduous as the one before. Made worse somehow by the fact that she had been off the wretched machine for an extended period. Wednesday had told her, as they had eaten, about the strangeness in the petrol station so she kept her powers bubbled around them, testing for anything unusual through the day. They stopped twice, once for fuel, once for food, and nothing was out of the ordinary.

But as the sun started to dip on the end of their second day something slimy and thick brushed itself against her wall, making her suddenly nauseated. She tapped Wednesday’s leg, the signal that something was wrong. Wednesday accelerated and inside a few moments the feeling was gone, but it had been there and it had been very, very strong. 

Someone was following them. 

Someone knew where they were.


	70. Wednesday

Wednesday didn’t want to sleep, she didn’t want to let them rest that night but she had little choice. They were in a little seafront hotel that was all but empty as it was out of season and they could see the lighthouse in the distance where they believed Pubert to be. They were an hours ride and a short boat trip away from getting to her brother but she felt worse than ever. 

“Artemisia I am worried that someone knows that I’m here, I’m even more worried that someone will know that you’re here and that they might know what you are. If we are right and the Sefeth are working with the Valks then I don’t know how we’re going to get past them. They are strong and at least one of them already knew your weakness. What is there to say that you can fight it off?”

“I have been building my strength I think,” Matilda said. Wednesday watched as she made the room ready for the night, pushing furniture in front of doors and windows, closing shutters that she should have been able to reach. It was an impressive display, but didn’t make her feel much safer. “I have a feeling that I will be able to hold them off for longer this time. Much longer, if I really put some energy into it. If I can conserve everything until we get there…”

Wednesday wasn’t convinced, and Matilda’s face wasn’t instilling her with confidence. There was a lot that could go wrong and of the two of them Matilda was both the strongest and the most vulnerable. 

“If you’re sure? I am happy to go on without you if-”

“We’re not going to have this conversation again,” Matilda snapped. “I’m going with you.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” 

“Me too. It’s been a rough day. Why don’t we just get some sleep?”

Wednesday climbed into bed, but where Matilda drifted off quickly she lay awake, thinking. 

What did she know about the Sefeth clan? Not a great deal, not compared to the others. They had been considered dangerous enough to all but wipe out years before, and those who did survive were usually in hiding, living in secret among the mundane world so that they wouldn’t be culled by the other clans. They were a force to be reckoned with and if they were in large numbers once more…it was a terrible thought. 

Then there was the matter of Matilda. If there were others like her, would they be there? Had nobody heard of them because they too were in hiding? The kind of power that Matilda wielded was enough to cause worry if it existed in large numbers. There was a reason that none of the clans held a lot of magic between them. It was dangerous volatile. Unpredictable. 

They were either being very brave or very stupid walking headlong into so much danger, and she couldn’t decide which.


	71. Matilda

Matilda had thought that she might not be able to sleep, but as soon as Wednesday had curled up in her arms she felt the drowsiness take her and she fell into the uneasy darkness. 

She dreamed of the Sefeth. Of the man that had worked his way into her mind and caused her more pain than even her own family had managed to. She had been building walls around her mind since she was a child but he had broken through them in seconds, and though she thought that she would be able to resist them she wasn’t completely confident. In her dreams she was disabled over and over by the piercing shrill shriek that they had forced into her mind and as much as she pushed against it she couldn’t keep them out. 

How was she supposed to defend against that? The only thing she had was her power. She wasn’t like Wednesday, she didn’t have skills with weapons, she didn’t know a thing about combat. She wasn’t even good at walking quietly. All she had was her power and once that was taken away from her what was she? They didn't have enough information. The didn’t have enough time.

She woke long before the sun rose and lay staring at the ceiling, listening to Wednesday’s even breathing. It seemed that Wednesday was one of those rare people who could sleep through almost anything. It was the only time that she looked truly at peace and it was a look that Matilda couldn’t get enough of. 

More than anything else Matilda wanted to protect the sleeping woman next to her. To wade into the fire with her without a care for her own safety. But she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, in a place that would only be acknowledged in her dreams, that one of them might not walk out again. If she was given a chance, she would ensure that it was her.

If she had a chance, she would give up everything for her raven haired girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely readers!
> 
> We are coming up to the end of the second week of isolation and I just wanted to pop in to express some huge gratitude for your continued support of this little fic through that.
> 
> Addamswood now has over 2500 hits, over 250 Kudos, over 70 bookmarks and more than 400 comments (some of which I haven't replied to yet, I'm working on it!)
> 
> I cannot thank you all enough for continuing to read and support this work. It's the cheesiest thing to say in the world but I couldn't have kept this up without you all. 
> 
> With that in mind I want to get to know you a bit better! I would love it if you would leave a comment with your favourite pairing (outside of Addamswood, because I mean come on), your favourite fandom and one thing that is keeping you sane in isolation. 
> 
> Here are mine:
> 
> **OTP:** Kanji Tatsuime/Naoto Shirogane (Persona 4)  
**Fandom:** Critical Role (Yes it's huge but so so worth it)  
**Sanity:** Cosplaying virtually with TikTok friends and playing Don't Starve Together on Steam, (not to forget writing of course)
> 
> Be safe friends.  
So much love, and many more words to come,  
Kat


	72. Wednesday

“Are you ready to go?” 

Matilda had been quieter than usual, and was brushing her hair manually rather than letting her powers do it as Matilda had seen every day before. She knew that it had been a bad night, that they hadn’t slept as well as they could have, that Matilda was worrying about whatever she had felt as they were riding. She was worried about it too, but it was important not to show it. She had to be strong. 

“Almost. What’s the plan again?”

Wednesday took the brush out of her hands, and started running it over the soft brown hair as she spoke. It was nice to do something with her hands, and she loved the feel of Matilda’s hair in her fingers. 

“We get to the lighthouse, we announce ourselves and the fact that we have arrived to get Pugsley to take him home. If they don’t let us in then we storm the house. If they do let us in and therefore are playing nice then we see how far inside they will lead us before springing the assault. If they take us all the way to Pugsley then all the better but I don’t think that they will somehow. I think they will try to lead us into a trap.”

“And if neither of those things happen? If they are waiting on the road?”

Wednesday sighed, settling the wide black velvet band into Matilda’s hair and trying to keep her tone light. 

“Then I suppose we begin the fight where they have laid out for us. I imagine they will be waiting, they have been looking out for us as we go so it makes sense that they will know that we’re coming. Though he has been kept secluded I imagine that Pubert will have found a way to get a message to them. I don’t expect that this will be easy.”

Not for the first time Wednesday wondered about asking Matilda to stay behind. She knew that it was a pointless request, but the thought of seeing Matilda hurt was more than she could stand.

They were so close. 

As they rode towards the lighthouse Wednesday could feel her heart thumping in her chest. They had been working towards it for so long, fighting their way towards where Pugsley was. They had gone through some of the worst things that the Valk family could throw at them, and they had survived. Part of her was confident that they would make it and the rest of her was terrified. 

What would happen to her family if they failed?

What would happen if they won?

As they reached the coast line she could feel that something was wrong. The thick, sticky feeling was everywhere and the air prickled with electricity. She felt the tap on her leg that told her Matilda could feel it to, quickly followed by the warm humming of Matilda’s power winding around them. 

So it was to be a fight.


	73. Matilda

She could feel them everywhere.

Energy from all directions, power pulsing around them. It was all that she could do to keep the wall up. 

How many were there? It was impossible to tell. 

She pulled her walls in tighter. 

Time to find out if she was strong enough.

Time to learn what she could do.


	74. Wednesday

Wednesday could only see open road. They were coming up to the docks where she knew that they would need to stop, where the plan was for them to get one of the smaller boats out onto the island and the feeling had not gone. But she couldn’t see a single person. Not one figure in any direction. If there had been nothing else, that fact alone would have made her suspicious. 

She was just turning to shout to Matilda to see if she had seen anything when all at once they all appeared. 

Twenty, perhaps 30 men and women all stood in a line no more than 10 feet from the front of the bike. A woman in the middle held up a hand with a strange crystal in it and let out a long cry, and they all started moving at once. 

Chaos broke out, people in all directions were running and shouting. Some coming towards the, some running around the sides, and everywhere was the slick, slimy feeling of the Sefeth power. 

She slammed on the brakes a moment too late, and the bike caught and slid, throwing them over sideways onto the road and into the fight that she had been hoping to avoid. 

The clattering of metal on tarmac was so much louder than Wednesday had imagined it would be, and her head hit the floor with an alarming thump that left her ears signing for a moment. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything. 

Somewhere, someone behind her shouted again. 

Get up Wednesday. You have to get up.

Her body was screaming at her, everything hurt. There was a hot, wet feeling in her hand and she was fairly certain that her shoulder was broken. 

She had to get up. 

Around her people were really shouting, voices from all directions that she couldn’t quite understand. And then one rang through, clear and close. 

“Wednesday I can’t hold them back forever.”

Her eyes snapped open and she saw Matilda standing over her, hands thrown out to the sides. It was as though she was looking at the rest of the world through a milky haze. Was this the extent of Matilda’s power? She had created a wall of sorts through which it appeared nothing could move. She saw something launching towards them, then come to a sudden stop, turn and be thrown back. Over and over things were stopped as they approached and turned away. But it was clear that Matilda was using a lot of power all at once. She had to do something. 

“I’m going to get up, Artemisia,” she said, “and when I tell you drop this and we run for the dock. We just press through, move them out of the way where we can and go. We run through, okay?”

“You think we can?”

“I think if you can stop yourself getting hurt then you don’t need to worry about me and we will work it out from there.”

She eased herself up, trying to ignore the throbbing in her head, her back, her neck. It seemed that she had been hurt for the both of them in the crash. She pulled out her crossbow, counting several blessings that it had survived, and loaded up as many bolts as it would take from her bag. 

“Okay Artemisia. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“On three.”

“Okay.”

“One…”

She braced herself, fixing her eyes on where she knew that the dock was.

“Two.”

Time seemed to slow. 

“Three.”

The walls dropped and she heard herself shout. Then they were running.


	75. Matilda

Matilda ran. She had never moved so quickly but immediately she knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. There were too many of them and she couldn’t look everywhere at once. 

An arrow came in, followed by another. One missed on it’s own and she flicked the other away. But as soon as they were dealt with thee was another, and another. 

She pulled bows out of hands, throwing them into the water. She tripped people as they ran. She did everything that she could to stop their assault but there just seemed to be endless numbers. 

A whizzing bolt towards Wednesday caught her off guard and she almost missed it.

She sent it back in a random direction, no time to look. No time to aim. 

They kept running, her lugs burning in her chest, her back joining the complaint where her scars were still fresh and raw. 

100 more yards and they would be at the dock. There was a boat there. They just had to make it. 

“Stop her!”

The shout seemed to come from everywhere, and then the pain struck. The piercing inside her head. The pitched whining that tore at her mind. 

“Wednesday!”

She flung energy outward, hoping to catch whoever it was, but the ringing grew louder and louder. 

I’ve got-”

The shout was cut off and for a moment the noise vanished. Matilda shook her head clear and tried to press on, but it was like hitting a wall. There was norther shrill note, followed by a second. 

It was too much. She stumbled, tripping as her mind tried to fend off the assault. 

Once they were in, there was no getting them out. She could barely see, couldn’t hear anything other than the noise.

Then, somewhere in the distance, Wednesday calling for her. A pained cry. 

They were so close to the docks. Just a few steps more. 

Shouting. So much shouting.

Heat in her chest.

Wednesday.

She had always known it would happen.

Her knees buckled and as the world span she saw the bolt strike clean into the back of the girl in front of her. She saw Wednesday fall.


	76. Matilda

She didn’t know how much time had passed. 

She didn’t know how many she had taken down. 

What she did know, was that once Wednesday fell she had lost all sense of reason. 

They had been trying to get through it without lethal force, but of course those were rules set by one side only and the Valk assault had pulled no punches. 

When Matilda returned to her senses she was standing over Wednesday, blood spattered and shaking, an unfamiliar crossbow in her hand empty of bolts and a strewn series of bodies around her. She looked at them. Had she done all of that? If she had she couldn’t remember it. 

What did she remember?

Wednesday shouting, taking out the one who had shot her. Then another shout, and the arrows that she was too distracted to see. Then, the pulse. 

Had that come from her? 

Was it that that had stopped the onslaught?

For the first time she looked down at the body. 

She tried not to vomit.

Wait. Was it a body?

“Wednesday?”

There was just a flicker, for a single moment. 

“Wednesday can you hear me?”

“Go.”

The word was so weak that she didn’t believe she had heard it. She couldn’t have. There was an arrow in Wednesday's chest, one in her neck and a third sticking out of the back of her shoulder. Nobody could have survived that. Could they?

“Go.”

There it was again. 

Matilda dropped the crossbow and knelt, pressing her fingers to Wednesday's wrist. It was weak, but there was a pulse. 

“Wednesday. I’m not leaving you.”

“Save…”

“Wednesday can you move?”

“No. Leave…”

“I’m not leaving you here so you can just forget about that.”

Matilda looked around for something, anything, that might help her to move Wednesday. She couldn’t put her back on the motorcycle, and there was no way that she could carry her for long, even with her powers. Where would they even go? They were on a dockside in the very middle of nowhere. There was nobody around to find them. Though if she was being honest it would be difficult to explain if someone did. She needed a hospital. She needed-

“Artemisia…”

“I’m here.” She squeezed Wednesday's hand. “I’m here.”

“Go.”


	77. Wednesday

Everything hurt. 

_I’m going to die._

It was the clearest thought that she had, and it kept coming back. 

She tried to open her eyes but her body wouldn’t let her. She tried to move but her body was on fire. If she could just lift her hand maybe she could get out the arrow in her neck. Were you supposed to take things out or leave them in? She used to know. 

_I’m going to die and Artemisia is going to see it._

That was a new thought, and not one that she liked. Marilda wasn't used to death, not like she was. She hasn't grown up seeking the words of her ancestors by digging them up. She was strong but, nobody was that strong. 

_Run while you can._

Could she say it out loud? Her throat hurt so much. But if she could just…

“Wednesday?”

Artemisia's voice, it didn’t sound right.

_Was she crying?_

No. She didn’t cry, was a ridiculous thing to think. Artemisia got things done, she was strong and sensible and reliable and…

And her girlfriend was going to die right in front of her. It seemed enough to make anyone cry. 

_I don’t want to leave her._

“I-”

It wouldn’t come out. The words hurt too much. 

“Go.”

Somewhere she heard a reply, but it seemed so far away. 

_I need you to stay alive. Or this is pointless._

Why wouldn’t her lips work? Her tongue was heavy. Everything hurt. 

_It’s not at all like going to sleep._

She had always hoped that it would be. 

_Maybe if I stop trying the pain will go away._

“Wednesday. Don’t leave me.”

_I don’t want to go._


	78. Matilda

“Wednesday.” 

Matilda felt the tears, hot on her face. It had been so long. 

“Please. If you can hear me just listen. I’m going to think of something. I don’t know what but something. You just have to hang on a little longer. I will find a way to get you out of here, I know I will.”

She wiped her eyes. The pulse was still there, but with every second Wednesday was moving less, was responding less. Her last words had been telling Matilda to go, but how could she possibly leave? 

“This is the worst time to tell you this, because I don’t even know if you can hear me. But here it is. I think I love you, Wednesday. You mean so much to me, more than anyone ever has. You are the darkness in my life that I never knew I needed. You are my smile, my joy. You bring me a kind of happiness that I have never known and if I’m losing you right now then I need to say it because maybe somewhere in there you’ll hear it. Maybe somewhere, as you go, you’ll know. And I need you to know.”

She choked back the tears that were threatening to stop her talking all together. 

“I need you to know that you have made these last few months good, even when they were impossibly hard. Even when everything was going wrong, I’ve had you. Without you, I don’t know who I’ll be. I don’t know how I’ll go on.”

Though it was insane, she leaned down and brushed a kiss against Wednesday's bloody lips.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”


	79. Wednesday

_I love her too. I can’t go. Not now. Not when…_

Wednesday tried to open her eyes again. She pulled at her eyelids, willing them to do something, anything. 

_She needs to know. I can’t let her not know._

A twitch in her fingers. Just for a second. Had she done that?

There was so much darkness. So much pain. 

_I’m not giving up._

She pushed again, trying to find any strength left in her. 

_Artemisia._

That was the thing to hold on to. That one thought. 

_Artemisia._

She was getting cold. Colder than she had been for years. That wasn’t a good sign. 

_Artemisia_

Was there any point in trying to move? She knew that she had been shot, so moving might be a bad idea. 

_Artemisia._

There was no way that she was letting the darkness take her. Not without a fight. Through the pain, thought the haze, she kept that one thought held strong in her mind. 

_Artemisia Artemisia Artemisia._


	80. Matilda

As she sat Wednesday stopped moving at all, and as much as she tried to get a response there was none. But the faintest heartbeat remained and while that was still true she wasn’t going to give up. 

She ran between the bodies and her love, searching for anything that might help. 

There were supplies stowed away just beyond the fight. Kits full of bandages and plasters, things that would help small injuries. But there was nothing that could help Wednesday it seemed. Or at least, nothing that she could find. 

But there was a boat still strapped to it’s dock carriage. It was small, but there was a chance…

She ran back to Wednesday again, checking the pulse. 

Faint but still there.

Back to the boat. Could she move it? She wedged herself against it and shoved. Nothing. Again. Nothing. 

Back to Wednesday. Was she breathing? Just. That was enough. 

Breaks. There are breaks on it. Click those off and push. 

She pressed at it with all of the power she had left. It moved. 

Back to Wednesday. Would it be safe to move her? It didn’t seem like there was going to be another choice if she wanted to get her out of there safely. If she did it carefully maybe it would be okay. 

Rope. Somewhere there would be rope. 

She settled for a series of belts from the fallen around her, looping them together and together and finally one that would go around her waist, attaching her to what she was trying not to think of as Wednesday's funeral carriage. 

It took all of her strength and a good deal of her power to hall the boat back up the slope from the dockside but once it was on the flat and rolling it moved well. It would work. Maybe. 

“Hold on, Wednesday. I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to take you…” where? Where was she going to take a girl who had been shot three times with a weapon that nobody ever used? How was she going to explain that? 

Maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe she just had to get her in and they would do the rest. 

Was there a doctors nearby? A hospital? 

There weren’t even houses.

She shook herself. The first problem was getting her into the boat. 

Matilda was not strong. She had always been smart so that she didn’t have to be strong. She was a firm believer that you only needed to be one or the other, and strength seemed to take a lot more effort than smarts so she stuck with it. She had always been able to figure things out, but her mind was racing and the only thing she had was her powers. 

Perhaps it was time to try to be strong. 

“Wednesday,” she whispered. “If you can hear me in there somewhere, I need you to hold on. Please. Stay with me.”

Carefully Matilda broke off the arrow shafts. She knew that it would make them harder to take out later, but it also meant that she wasn’t going to catch them on anything and injure Wednesday more through the process and that was important. Very important. The less damage she could cause the better. 

Then it was time to lift. 

How did you pick up a person? 

She focused her power, slipping it under Wednesday's knees, more under her shoulders. 

This was it. Time to be strong. She couldn’t fail. 

She channelled all of her sorrow, all of the rage that had built through the fight. She pulled it all to her. 

“Three,” she muttered, grinding her teeth as she tried to focus. “Two.” A long deep breath. “One.”

And Wednesday rose. Matilda staggered, the effort of controlling her power when she had already used so much exhausting. With held breath and only one small bump she managed to lay Wednesday down into the little rowboat. 

The pulse was still there. 

“Hold on,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to Wednesday's cold lips. “I’m going to get you some help.”

She bucked the belt around her waist, dug her feet into the ground and with a heave started to pull the boat back towards civilisation.


	81. Wednesday

_Wednesday. Don’t you dare leave me._

Was that a voice? Was it a thought? She didn’t know. 

The darkness was everywhere. It was as though there was nothing and everything in the world all at once. 

_Why are you bothering to hold on?_

That sounded so much like a girl she used to know. Blonde. Who had she been?

_You'll only hurt her._

Will I? 

The pain had almost gone away, That or she had become so used to it that she wasn’t feeling it anymore. 

_Idiot._

Maybe. 

Different voices came. Words that she couldn’t hear. It was like being underwater. Some things came through but…

_Step away from her, child._

Grandmama? 

_She needs…_

Artemisia.

_Hold on._

I’m trying to.


	82. Matilda

Matilda's feet were bleeding in her boots, she could feel it. But she wasn’t stopping. There was no force that could have made her. She had walked until the sun was high and burning her, she had walked with no direction. Trudging. Desperate. It had only taken a few hours on the motorbike. It hadn’t felt that far. 

She wished that she had brought some water. Some food. 

She wished that she had waited for help. 

“Matilda?”

And now she was hearing things. Brilliant. 

“Matilda!”

Just like her mind to mock her when she needed help. Of course. 

Something grabbed at her leg. She shook it off without looking down. 

Another grab, and then a scuttle. A tugging on her sleeve. 

“What?”

She looked down, pulled out of her daze for just a second. 

“Thing?”

She stared, not sure that she was believing what she had seen. 

“Thing, Wednesday told you not to follow-”

But she was cut short because he was pointing ahead of her. 

A squat, grey haired woman was ambling towards her, half smiling half frowning. There were several other dumpy women behind her, all dressed in shades of grey and black. 

“Matilda. I’m glad I finally caught up to you. That infernal motorcycle, you were never supposed to get this far. Thing tells me that something awful has happened. Come _on_.”

Matilda stopped and stared at the woman. 

“Grandmama?”

She had gone mad. Completely mad. There was no way-

“I told you that I would follow, that I would gather the matriarchs and that I would help. Did you think I had gone mad girl? Now I think there are more important things at hand, don’t you?”

“Wednesday, she-”

“Will be much better off in the back of the car. Where is your mind girl? Snap out of it and come on.”

All around was activity. There were ancient, bent women all around her in a moment, leaning and muttering over Wednesday. They were pulling things out of pockets and bags that seemed impossible. Ropes and lengths of cloth, vials of strange coloured liquid. In a matter of moments they had arranged a cradle of cloth under Wednesday and were using it to pull her upward out of the boat. 

All Matilda could do was watch. Wednesday rose out of the boat like a corpse out of the ground. Once she was clear of the boat Matilda hurried over, supporting under Wednesday's back as much as was possible so that she wasn’t hurt by the process. She was pale, even for an Addams, and so cold. 

“Grandmama?”

“No time for that. Now step away, child. Let us work a moment.”

She did as she was told, and watched as Wednesday was lowered into the back of the hearse. 

“She is worse than I feared,” Grandmama muttered, to a general murmur of agreement. 

“Agnella, Matron, stay with her. I believe she will need you before this journey is done.” Grandmama turned and looked to the other ladies. “To the Addams seafront manor. As quickly as we can ladies. There is work to do.”

“Grandmama?”

“Get in Matilda. I will explain what I can as we drive.”

She watched in awe as the women around her mounted or entered various machines of transport. They were lined up behind the hearse in the most peculiar convoy she had ever seen, and if anyone outside of the clans had seen it Matilda suspected that there would be trouble. Questions. Normal folk did like to ask questions. 

But she got into the family hearse as instructed and seated herself next to Grandmama. The Thing was driving, and he seemed more frantic than ever. 

“Grandmama who are all of these women?”

“That’s not the place to start,” she gave Matilda smile. “I think we start with who you are, Matilda Wormwood. You are a rare power, from a long line we think, and if you are anything like those before you will be stubborn, and clever, and a little more headstrong than we might like. Wednesday is so much the same. I knew that there was no way to stop you both from coming out here, what I hadn't expected is the effect you have had on my dear granddaughter.”

Matilda wasn’t sure that she understood, but Grandmama continued. 

“Those from your line are impossibly powerful, and very rare. I knew as soon as you entered our home. Those in the clans will be fascinated by you. And our Wednesday is no different. For an Addams to devote themselves to someone so completely is almost as rare as your abilities, their entire being will change as they fall. Their soul will mark itself for that person, and that makes them reckless. Foolish. Does this make sense?”

Matilda shook her head. 

“We went through all of this with Wednesday's father,” Grandmama sighed. “It is strongest with the Addams women, but when he met Wednesday's mother I thought the entire sky would come down around them. It is in her blood to be this way, and it is in yours to draw those of the clans towards you. You are bound by something now, I believe. Something that kept you both moving forward when all others would have turned back. It is why you are aching in your neck, in your shoulder, in your back. Am I right?”

"I don't-" 

“Perhaps in time you will. But it is vital that you begin to learn, to understand who you are. Wednesday is an Addams and that comes with it's own burdens. She is headstrong and reckless and believes that she cannot be defeated once she sets her mind to something. Her devotion to you is strong, you will be her weakness.”

“I didn't mean to-”

“Child, I am not blaming you. This is not your doing. But you must understand, you must learn to pull her back.”

Matilda nodded. She had known that what they were doing was insane, she had known that it would be near impossible. But Wednesday had been so sure, and she had been swept up in the feeling. 

“So how to go I get her back?”

“You lean on your family a little, and you work like an Addams. There’s no other way.”

Her heart leapt. Her family? An Addams? She risked a look over to Grandmama, who was smiling at her. 

“I’m glad that you came,” she whispered.

“Yes well. I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”


	83. Wednesday

Wednesday opened her eyes. 

She was, once again, laying on what felt like a slab of marble in a strange smelling room. 

_Artemisia._

Every part of her hurt. She tried to move but something was stopping her. She tugged at her wrists. Was she tied down?

“Hello?” There was a rustling somewhere behind her, like a lot of fabric sweeping the ground. “Is someone there?”

So she had been kidnapped. It made sense, she had been foolish enough to let her defences down. What was going to happen to her now was anyone’s guess. She didn’t like to think too much about it. 

“Ah you’re awake.”

The voice was thin, reedy, as though it didn’t get much use. She tried to turn her head to see where it had come from but that appeared to be strapped down as well. 

“Yes I’m awake. Who are you?”

A stooping woman shuffled into view. She looked easily two hundred years old, with wispy white hair flowing around her shoulders and no teeth at all. Wednesday thought she might well be held together by her wrinkles. 

“My name is Agnella Addams. Pleased to meet you, child.”

“Wednesday.”

“Say again dear?”

“My name is Wednesday.”

“Well it is as it is, they are one and the same at the end of times. Wednesday it is.”

“You’re an Addams?”

She was suddenly very confused, she knew every Addams'. If it was a ruse by the Valks then they had managed to get a lot of information. Did they have Artemisia too? She needed to get out of the bindings. She had to find her. 

“I am an Addams and I can see what you’re thinking. I’m not trying to trick you. Griselda asked me to tend to you as the matron. I have been fixing your wounds these past nights and I must admit for a time I had believe that you were past even my healing ability. It is not often that one is so injured for so long. You must have been very determined.”

“If you’re an Addams then you won’t mind undoing these straps.”

Wednesday was already studying as much of the room as she could see. It was more than possible that this woman knew Grandmama's name but she wasn’t about to trust her for even a moment. There were too many things that she didn’t know. 

“I can once you have been properly cleared of all injury. We can’t have you sitting up and wandering off too soon. I have been warned that you are not a very good patient. ”

“I’m not in pain.”

It was a lie, but the panic was rising.”

“You are, dear, but I can see why you are telling me these things. You don’t trust me. It makes sense when you consider.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “If you stay here and do not attempt to sit up I will send my runner to collect your Artemisia for you. Would that make things a little better?”

Wednesday nodded as best she could through the head strap. She did want to see Artemisia, but how did she know that that wasn’t a ruse too? Nothing felt like it was true, nothing felt as though it was real. 

The only thing that she could focus on was the straps. There had to be a way to pull them loose, perhaps once Agnella turned away...

“Right, well. Give me a moment then.”

She put two wizened fingers into her mouth and let out a high, shrill whistle. A moment later two large birds swooped down and perched themselves on her arm. Wednesday's eyes grew wide, they were ravens, the largest that she had ever seen. 

“Quoth, Lenore, go and fetch the guest for me. Tell her that the girl is awake and would like to see her.”

The birds both let out low, loud caws and took back to the air. 

“You-”

“Yes I keep raven familiars. Very useful birds, ravens, very intelligent you see. Now, why don’t we see to these arrow wounds again? I think there might _still_ be some scraps of wood in them.”

“I would rather wait for Artemisia,” Wednesday said, hurriedly. She wasn’t sure that she wanted the woman coming too close, especially now that she was awake. She didn’t know what might be done to her and she wasn’t keen to find out. “Before anything else.”

Agnella sighed, but seemed to concede, taking a seat at the foot of the slab. 

“Well I suppose if you don’t trust me to even work on you you may as well wait. Though I warn you the longer those shards are in you the worse it will be later. They are nasty things, Yew I suspect form the grain, which means they will work and seep and linger for days after removal. If there’s one thing that the Valk family know it’s poison and you my dear have had rather a lot of it coursing through you this afternoon. The fact that you live at all is testament to your strength, or perhaps your stubbornness, but I wouldn’t tempt fate with these things. If any one piece remains the poison over time will take you. It always does.”

“I will take my chances,” Wednesday snapped. “I have to know that Artemisia is safe.

“And that you aren’t in danger.”

There was a heavy silence in the air and all that Wednesday could do was grind her teeth and wait. She thought she would be able to pull out her right hand, and perhaps her leg as well if she needed to, but the left side was still tightly held. 

“I can see what you’re doing,” Agnella said, sounding almost bored. “And while I appreciate that you are trying to be subtle about it I was aware from the first moment. My eyes are not what they were perhaps but my ears are excellent and those buckles are deliberately a little noisy. By all means continue to tug against the bindings, but you will be in significant pain if you attempt to sit up. You are laying on marble for a reason. It is wicking the poison for you whilst I work. The moment that you are away from it the full force of the Valk weapon will be with you again and you will return to the coma that had taken you.”

Wednesday halted her struggle. 

“My dear I can only tell you so many times. I am an Addams, I am not here to hurt you.”

“I know the face of every Addams for the last three centuries. I don't know you. You could be working with them.”

“Clearly then you do not. I work with my clan, I look after my own, and I do not hold with those who use such underhanded means as to kidnap one child of a clan, turn another to their cause and try to potion the third. There are rules, rules that they seem to have forgotten.”

“You’re really an Addams?”

“I am great grandmother to Griselda Addams, mother to many of the clan. Aunt to even more.”

“That makes you my-”

A familiar, amused voice somewhere behind her stopped her words. 

“Great, great great Grandmother.”

“Artemisia!”

There was a rushing of feet behind her, and then a familiar warm hand over hers. 

“Yes I’m here, and yes you are safe. She’s quite mad,” Matilda shot a smile to Agnella,” but she has kept you alive for me so far.” 

“I thought-”

“I know,” Matilda said, and Wednesday saw the flicker of concern in her eyes. “But you are safe. I need you to listen to her, I need you to get through this so that we can go back, all of us.”

“So Pugsley-”

“It still with them.”

“Artemisia,” Wednesday said, shocked. “You should have left me. You should have kept yourself...” She freed the hand that she could, and reached up to Matilda, pulling her down for a brief, chaste kiss. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”

As soon as her arm lifted she felt the sting in her shoulder, and let it drop quickly. 

“Rest. Let Matron Agnella work I will be with the others. There's a lot of planning to do.”

Wednesday nodded, relishing the cool stone that seemed to immediately take the pain from her arm. 

She watched as Matilda turned and strode away, her boots clicking on what Wednesday suspected were marble floors. 

“Now then,” Agnella had risen to her feet. “Do you trust me enough to let me work?”

“I think so.”


	84. Matilda

Matilda paced back and forth in the large ballroom. She was so out of her depth, surrounded by Wednesday's family in an Addams residence so old that, from what she had heard, most had forgotten it. A place that had once held summer balls, gatherings of the joined clans, meetings of those who would work together in times of war. It was as grand as it was ancient and she was almost sorry that she wasn’t going to get the time to explore it. 

There was a lot to plan, a lot to do, but this time she was going to do what she should have at the beginning. She was going to use her head, and not think with her heart. She knew where they were going and she knew what needed to be done. Her various run ins with the Valks had also taught her a lot about them and what they could do, that would be useful when taking the fight to them. She was going to have to sit with Wednesday when it was all over and document the things that they had been through for the archives. It was information the like of which none had ever before collected. Agnella had been very interested in the strange effect of the Valk poisons and Matilda couldn’t blame her. None had ever survived to discuss what it felt like, what it had been like to be injured so, and if Wednesday pulled through they would both have done it. 

Finally, as she paced, the various of the family started to file into the hall. She stood at one end, waiting as they came. In ones and twos to start with, chattering and whispering with each other, seeing her standing at the front like a general. It should have been Wednesday there as more and more of her people came, and though she knew that it was not a time of celebration she felt a rising joy that they had answered the call, that so many of them had come. She had no family, but stood here it felt as though si did, and it was as though they had been waiting for the moment, and all that had been needed was for Wednesday to ask for them. It should have been Wednesday there, so until she was on her feet, it was down to Matilda to do what Wednesday would have.

“Addams Clan!”

A roar rose around the room as Addams’ from all over the country met her shout in one booming voice. 

“ADDAMS!”

“I trust that you know why you have been called.” The noise dropped immediately, until only Matilda's voice could be heard around the room. She kept it as steady as she could. “Wednseday's brother, your brother has been taken by the Valk sisters. Bewitched by their magics and drawn to thinking that he would sooner ally himself with them than with his own.”

A hiss wove through the listeners. There were not many among the Addams Clan who would readily trust a Valk. For better or worse they had been enemies since the founding of the clans. 

“For too long the Valks have schemed. For too long they have yearned for the downfall of the Addams’. We cannot let this happen. We cannot allow them to work their way into our minds. To take what is yours. Wednesday and I have tried in vain to reason with them, to ask for what is ours to be returned. We have gone to them twice in the night to find what has been taken and they will not return him. If we do not act Pugsley may be lost to the clan forever. And how long has it been since you lost one of your own? Can you remember a time when an Addams deserted you? When they have refused to see their way home? It has been a long time. But now that time has come again and the Addams Clan must do what is right to save their own.” She paused, letting a deeper hush fall over the room, glad that Grandmama had briefed her on what to say. “We must go to war.”

There was a mummer rising but she didn’t let it grow. 

“We know more now, with all of you together, than we ever have. We can do more. The minds of the great Clan of Addams are second to none. There is not a trial that together we cannot overcome, So I ask you now. Work with Wednesday, with me, help us to do what must be done. We know the way, we know where they hide. If we all stand as one, they cannot stand at all.”

A cheer rose up then, with shouts from all directions in support, and Matilda did her best not to smile. It wasn’t the time to let heart show, this was a head matter. 

“Tonight we gather our knowledge, and at dawn we plan our assault on the Valk water fortress.”


	85. Wednesday

Wednesday knew that there was something going on, she could hear the distant shouting, but she was too tired to even want to go and see. Agnella had been talking while she worked, but there were more shards of yew in her system still, and though the marble was taking away the pain the poison was still trying to work. 

“Matron,” she said, hoping that her idea wasn’t going to sound insane. “If you call Artemisia, she may help. Her power...”

“Are you intending to have her do as she once did to yourself? Because I must tell you that this is a little more complex than rolling some lead out of a wound. These shards are designed to dig and grip. I would not want her to rip something.”

“If you directed her, perhaps it could go twice as fast.”

She could see Agnella thinking. 

“I will find her. But be warned, this is a lot to ask of someone.”

Wednesday stretched as best she could while Agnella wandered to find the Matilda. It was difficult to lay still when someone was digging into a wound with tweezers, especially when that wound was close enough to your ear that you could hear every squelch, every small tear, every snag. It was almost worse to hear it than to feel it. It didn’t help that the only thing that she could really focus on was the hulking shadow of one of the ravens sitting off to the side. Any time that she looked up to where it was it seemed to be looking at her and she couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps it was hoping that she wouldn’t make it so that it could have a good meal. They were good birds, and she kept telling herself that, but they were also carrion eaters and that meant that it wouldn’t take long for them to decide she was food if she died. Perhaps they had already decided. 

“Well your girlfriend certainly is devoted,” Agnella muttered, coming back into the room. “She's just washing up.”

“Matron, she wouldn't be touching me.”

“Cleanliness is important in surgical matters.”

"She's not wrong."

Wednesday smiled as Matilda walked towards her, a determined look on her face.

"That was a lot of shouting back there."

"Well someone had to address them." 

Wednesday tried not to let the pride she felt for Matilda show. To address the clan, to keep moving forward. She really was the stronger of them.

“I think," Agnella said, turning to Matilda, "you keep working on her shoulder, see if you cant work out some of the smaller pieces that I’m having trouble with. I will leave the light there so you can see, I’ll go and work on her side as I think that might be the quickest to clean. Then we have to look at her back and I don’t mind telling you that that's going to be the worst. I think the arrow may have struck shoulder blade and shattered a bit inside there. It will take some digging around to work out where it all went.”

The raven clicked it's beak on the stand and Wednesday scowled. It was still looking at her. 

“Just remember to put all of the shards that you can get out into the little dish that I’ve put on the marble there. We don’t want them floating around and I don’t want them on the floor where I might step on them.”

“I’ll remember.”

Wednesday felt one final squeeze of her hand and then she clothed her eyes and did her best to breathe.


	86. Matilda

“How is she, Matron?”

Matilda looked down at Wednesday, who seemed to have slipped back into the sleep that had taken her for the last several days. The pain as they had worked had been clear, but she had held on. Still, she looked sick, worse than Matilda had ever seen anyone look. Feverish, perhaps was the wrong word but it was the only thing that she could think to use. There was something distinctly wrong about the colour of her skin, the strange green tone to it, and the way that her body lay wasn’t restful. Even as she lay sleeping she looked tense, as though the pain was contorting her somehow.

“My girl, the honest answer is not one that you will like to hear.”

“Tell me anyway, Matron, I must know.”

“No other has ever survived one of these arrows when the poison has had so long. Let alone three. She has a strength of will the like of which I have never seen, even for an Addams, but I do not know if it will be enough to carry her through. Even now the poison is trying to take her. My skills woke her for an hour or so, and by sheer will she remained awake as we worked, but I fear that the more she exerts herself the more she may succumb to this. If she survives I do not know that she will have her former strength. She may not be the same girl at all.”

“But there is a chance that she will survive?”

“Child, there is always a chance.”

“Then survive she will,” Matilda said, smiling. “If there is one thing I know about her it is that she seems set to defy anything that gets in her way, so if you are telling me that there is still hope that she will beat this then I must believe that she can. She might be the only one who can.”

Matilda leaned against one of the many counters, absent mindedly scratching Lenore on the back of the head. The big bird chirped and cooed at her as she did so. She had never seen a raven so close. 

“I need to go and help the others,” she said, still frowning. “We need to plan our entrance. Fester wants to go entirely underwater but I think that might be more suspicious than the realises. I’ll come back later to check on her.”

She leaned down, pressed a light kiss to Wednesday's forehead, and swept from the room.


	87. Matilda

Matilda planned. She worked with Addams’ from every corner of the continent, and some who had come further still. She met with people who hadn't seen Wednesday since their early years, and those who had never met the rest of the clan and everywhere she stepped were more who felt like family. They all had skills, experience, knowledge that she could only dream of, and they were all there for Wednesday. 

That was what being one of the clans was about, and though she had known what the might of her family was he was a little overwhelmed by it all. There was so much that she hadn’t known, so much that she hadn’t seen. But the rest of her clan were more than making up for that. 

The ballroom was full of blueprints. Sketches that people had made from various reports of what it was like inside the lighthouse. Many of them had come from thrill seekers outside of the world of the clans, people who had heard the stories about it being abandoned, haunted, empty but with a light that still shone out for the boats that passed. They had snuck in to look around, and though they had almost always been scared away before they had made it to far there were reports that gave more detail than others, and it all helped to paint a picture of what could be waiting for them. 

In the west dining room all of the furniture had been pushed back to allow for Fester and his team to work on a machine to take them in. Boats were too plain, and would be too expected, Fester had other ideas and it seemed that a good number of the clans folk agreed with him. Sparks flew in that room, and Wednesday thought better than to walk in just in case. When Fester was working if you didn’t want to get roped in the best place to be was outside of the room. 

The east drawing room was packed with ladies in black. When Matilda walked in she half thought that she had walked into a womens institute meeting, but she looked again and saw that, though they were crafting, it was not sweaters that were being made in the room. Clans women sat fletching arrows, coiling rope, weaving nets and gossipping while they did so. At the far back corner of the room sat her own mother, binding thin strips of leather around and around the handles of long throwing knives. She gave Wednesday wave and a smile before turning back to the woman sitting next to her who appeared to be mid flow about some potion or another. 

As she passed the kitchens something exploded, and a peek told her that the various alchemically talented of the clan were within, cooking up things that she didn’t want to think too much about. Grandmama was an alchemist and there were always troublesome things in her workshop. She hurried on, still searching. There was one group that she was keen to find, one group who she knew would be the most help to her, if they were there. 

The children of the clans. 

They were the youngest, yes, but in some ways that made them the most interesting. Matron had told her to seek them, that you never knew what a young Addams was going to be like, and she was hoping that there were at least a few who would help her work on a special weapon of her own, something that she could take in with her, just in case. It wasn’t anything like anything she had ever read about, and she wasn’t sure that it would work at all, but she needed to try just in case it all went wrong. She had the last fight to thank for the idea, at least. That strange detonation of hers. A wave of force. 

Perhaps with the knowledge of the young she could harness such a thing, make a contraption that could hold a bubble of her power, should such a thing be possible. Then, she thought, they might have a chance at getting out alive.


	88. Wednesday

Two days passed that Wednesday was barely aware of. She lay on the marble, looking up at the raven when she wasn’t entirely asleep. She was starting to think that Agnella could see her through the eyes of the enormous bird. But she was too exhausted to think about it too much. 

On the third day she woke fully for what she thought might be the first time. She didn’t feel the fever on her brow, she didn’t feel as much of the pain in her limbs. She felt as though she wanted to sit up. To go and to find Wednesday. To see if she had missed the fight. 

As she started to sit up from the marble there was a deep caw behind her and she felt a feathery wing brush the top of her head. 

“Now now, where do we think we’re going?”

“I need to go and see what’s happening,” she said, her voice croaking from lack of use. “I’m strong enough now.”

“That remains to be seen.” 

Agnella wandered into view, and were it not for the weight of the raven only millimetres behind her Wednesday would have risen anyway. But there was something distinctly threatening about that bird. So she stayed where she was and endured the testing that the matron insisted upon before she was permitted to stand. Lifting one arm and then the other, lifting a leg, and then lifting it higher. Then both legs, then both arms. She felt entirely ridiculous and by the time that Agnella was satisfied she was torn between bored and exhausted. 

“Alright. I believe that the poison is entirely out of your system. You are free to go and find your Artemisia. But I have a request.”

“You saved my life, I believe I can grant you a request.” Wednesday tried not to sound exasperated.

“Send her to me once you have seen her. Send her to meet with the Matrons. We may have some knowledge to give her about her powers. We may be able to help her learn to use them at their full strength and perhaps control them a little better than she does at present.”

"Knowledge about her powers? But we don't know-"

"A girl with power the like of which the clans have not seen in half a millennium, and she comes with no family, no clan that she could call her own. She is a lake of power with no anchor. She could be dangerous. And that is why it is imperative that we speak with her.”

“She could be dangerous,” Wednesday said, “and I have thought about it a little. For a while I assumed that she must be of the clans but she will tell me nothing of her family so I cannot be sure.” Something that Agnella said struck her then. “Wait, you said we haven’t seen someone like her for nearly half a millennium. Does that mean we _have_ seen someone like her?”

“We have, and you know the stories as well as any other child of the clans, perhaps you have forgotten.”

“I can’t think of anyone who-”

“Think back to those stories, Wednesday. To the horrifying tales that your mother and father would tell you to help you sleep at night. Wasn’t there someone who you were desperate to be like when you grew up?”

“But-”

“Think, Wednesday.”

There was only one, in all of the books that Wednesday had been read, and it didn’t seem to fit. Matilda couldn’t do all of the things that she could do. And anyway that was a story from far further back, wasn’t it?

“You don’t mean…The Morregan?”

“Don’t you think that the power bears a striking resemblance? A child of that bloodline would have more power than a clan combined.”

“But The Morregan was thousands of years old, Matron. It couldn’t possibly be that-”

“Couldn’t it? We don’t know what happened to her line, we don't know how many are born and die before they can find their power, how many are destroyed by it as they grow. Perhaps she is the first with the strength to survive it.”

Wednesday shook her head. There was no way, no way at all, that her Matilda was from the line of the same great and terrible witch of the stories of her childhood. There were similarities, that much was certain, but The Morregan had been a story. She had cast real spells, with a wand and herbs and other such things that anyone who knew anything knew that you didn’t really need. She had bewitched towns and started plagues. She was one of the great disasters of the mortal world. Even they had stories about her. 

But there was that strange similarity. The ability to control objects with no outward sign at all. The outstanding strength.

“I think it’s a very large jump to make, Matron. But I will of course take heed of it. You are the wisest of us after all.”

“I’m the oldest,” Agnella laughed, “but that doesn’t make me wise. I only fear that you are harbouring the greatest threat imaginable to our world. One that could be far worse than the Valk family.”

“But we could be harbouring a great and powerful ally. I think at the moment, I am prepared to take that risk.”

"Send her to me none the less. She has some control of her power, that much is clear. but there could be more. If I am correct there is a chance that she can do a great deal more and if that is true then we need to unlock that in her as quickly as possible.”

“But what you are wrong and there is nothing more to what she can do? You will scare her for nothing, Matron.”

“If that is the case then we won't have to worry about any surprises when the fight comes. But I do not believe that we are wrong, Wednesday. Nor does Griselda.”

Wednesday nodded, and then before she could be stopped again she sat up and eased herself off the slab. Her body ached from the days of not being in use and there was a chill in her bones which she couldn’t quite shake, but it felt good to stand up and move around. 

“I’ll send her here, then.”

“Not to here. She will find us in the dining room, we will be together now that I am not needed here.”

She nodded and hurried out of the room, keen to find Matilda wherever she was in the house. Keen to throw herself into preparations.

“I cannot come with you into the Valk home,” Agnella said, suddenly as Wednesday was half way out the door. “But when the time comes I will send Quoth and Lenore with you, I must remain here to study these arrows. Perhaps I can find a way to treat the poisons, should any of you return.”

Wednesday nodded, and hurried on. 


	89. Matilda

Matilda was struggling to focus. She knew that there were plenty of things that she needed to be doing, but Wednesday was up and walking around and helping them and she couldn’t think of anything else. 

She wasn’t used to being distracted, she wasn’t really used to having anything that could distract her, and she was definitely not used to the strange swelling in her chest and throat every time that she and Wednesday met eyes. There was something about the face, the smile, the little glances that stole the very air from her lungs and if she wasn’t careful she was going to drown in the feeling. 

“I think this is as close as we’re going to get it.” A voice snapped Matilda out of yet another daydream. “We won’t know if it can hold and be sealed until you here to test it."

Matilda turned and frowned at Lucretia, one of the younger and more excitable cousins. She was holding the object of all of their work over the past few days. A shimmering glass orb, so thin that they were all slightly scared to hold it, with a silver sheen that ran across it’s face. It was part engineering, part magic, part she didn’t know what. 

“I'll take it for now," she said, "but I won't be testing it today.

“Well there’s no more time, Moon girl. If this doesn’t work we have to go back to the designs and I don’t think we’re going to have the time to do anything much else. Plus, we don't know if what you're going to try will kill us so best if you do it outside.”

"Matilda blinked and raised an eyebrow at Lucretia.

“I’m sorry what did you just call me?”

“Everyone knows your name by now, Moon girl. I just don’t particularly think you rate highly enough to give you the same as that of a goddess so for now I have decided that an alternative is better. I’m certain at some point you will either prove yourself to the family or they will all see what I have told them that-”

Wednesday stepped up, coughed, put a hand smartly over Lucretia's mouth and pushed her aside.”

“That’s quite enough of that,” she said, smiling at Matilda. 

“You know, Wednesday, by comparison you’re positively charming.”

Wednesday blushed, and took the orb from the still gibbering Lucretia. 

“So this is what you've been working on.”

“I thought...well I still don’t know how that happened but perhaps if we can put some of my power into here...” Matilda felt suddenly embarrassed. "But we have to try something.”

“Later, we'll take a walk. But I think Agnella wants to see you.”


	90. Wednesday

Wednesday walked through the gardens alone looking at the strange little orb. It seemed too fragile too thin and delicate. It seemed as though it would break the moment they tried to do anything with it, but she also knew the skill of her clan. They had made glass containers for all manner of things over the years, why should power be any different? 

While she had been healing, Wednesday had spent a lot of time worrying about Matilda. There was so much pressure on her, pressure to help the clan, to lead them whilst Wednesday was recovering, to learn about herself and her power and everything in between. Did she want to be there? Was she sure that this was right? Was it at all fair to ask it of her? There were more questions than answers.

At her request, Matilda had gone to meet with Agnella and the other oldest of the clan, gone to be told about someone who may or may not be a part of her history, gone to be studied and poked and prodded at. Of course, Addams women had always been skilled in magic and various other oddities, but that didn't mean they knew about Matilda, about her power. 

What if they were wrong?

What if they were right?


	91. Matilda

"So now you know all that we know."

Matilda sat, dumbfounded. There had to be some kind of a mistake. The power that they were talking about far surpassed...but somehow it made sense. Didn't it?

"And you believe that I, that my family? That somehow-"

"It may be," Grandmama interrupted "that your family showed no signs at all, but you cannot argue that there aren't similarities. With what we know, and with some careful testing I believe that we can find out. That we can teach you at least to further control the power that you wield now. To not exhaust yourself with it. To use more than just your anger and fear to draw it to you."

Matilda nodded. She had failed once, had let Wednesday down. She had let them all down.

"Okay," she said. "Where do we start?"


	92. Wednesday

Dinner felt far more like it had when she was a child, and Wednesday was glad of it. It was one of the first normal things that had happened and it wasn’t until she was sitting at a table, passing dishes back and forth, talking about things that only the clan would know that she realised just how much she had missed what she had left behind. Of course, it was far more chaotic than the mealtimes at home, with ten times as many people and a table so long that it took five minutes for the gravy to make it from one end to the other. But it felt like home, and that was enough. 

By the time the fourth course was done she was feeling much less like the world was ending. Being reunited with Matilda back had been the last piece of that puzzle. She hadn’t quite realised how much she had come to depend on her either. She didn’t want to lose sight of what they needed to do, of what they were almost ready to do, but for just one evening she noted to put it to the back of her mind. She just wanted to be Wednesday. 

When the chatter of the meal had died away someone at the end of the table, she couldn’t see who, stood up and cleared their throat.

“Addams! We have worked and toiled with no respite these days hence. Tonight, we spend out final night before the assault begins. Tonight, we dance!”

There was a general bubble of excitement in the room, and as much to her own surprise as anyone else’s Wednesday rose and offered a hand to Matilda. 

“Artemisia,” she cleared her throat, trying not to sound as nervous as she suddenly felt. “Will you join me for a dance?”

She was almost glad that Matilda looked too shocked to laugh, but after the fifth second of stunned silence she started to pull her hand away, all of the worry rising in a bubble in her throat. It was as she was moving to step back that warm fingers laced themselves through hers, and she looked up into a smile. 

“I have to warn you, I’m a terrible dancer.” 

“My moon, you can be no worse than I.”

“You’ve had a lot more practice than me…”

Wednesday tightened her grip on Matilda’s hand and lead her with the rest of the clan in the direction of the ballroom. It was true that she had been attempting to learn to dance for as long as she can remember, but she had never been given good reason to do so before, and so had never really put her mind to it. But now, with Matilda beaming over at her, their fingers entwined, she wanted to. She wanted to take her and waltz her around the room until her feet were too sore to stay on. She wanted to see her smile, to make her laugh the way that she had when dancing with her father. She only wished that she had paid more attention to her lessons, if she had perhaps her heart wouldn’t be beating so quickly as they waked through the enormous doorway into an already half full ballroom. 

She didn’t know where they had come from, but a small band were setting up on the stage to one side, and couples were lining up, waiting for the music to begin. It was a tradition as old as their family, and to see so many of them there, ready to dance, was quite something. 

“What are they going to play?” Matilda whispered to her, an excited waver to her voice. “I only really know one dance.”

Wednesday hadn’t thought about that.

“I have no idea.”

She smiled as Matilda giggled and rested one hand lightly on her shoulder just as the band started up. 

“I suppose it’s time to find out.”

Music swelled into the room and Wednesday realised just how much she didn’t know about dancing, especially in a room full of people. Everyone was moving and spinning and stepping in time with the beat while she and Matilda vaguely wobbled around in a small circle where they were. 

They stayed that way until the music changed, and even though everyone around them launched into an entirely different dance they continued their slow, swaying shuffle. 

Wednesday knew that she was a terrible dancer, she knew that to the others in the room they probably looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She was there with Matilda, and that was all that mattered.


	93. Matilda

“Wednesday, are you sure you’re not just doing this for me? You hate dancing.” 

Matilda was having a good time, as hilariously bad as they both were at dancing, as strange as it was to be there surrounded by strangers stepping almost in time to music that she didn’t know, she couldn’t stop from beaming. 

“I don’t hate it when it’s with you,” Wednesday said, “now hush I’m trying to concentrate.”

She laughed, the strained focus on Wednesday’s face brought a giggle up to her chest every time she saw it. In the time that they had known one another she had never really seen the vulnerability that was coming from Wednesday as she tried to dance well. It was endearing in a way that she couldn’t have expected and the more she looked at it the less she wanted to look away. 

Instead as the song changed again whilst their dance remained the same she leaned in, resting her head on Wednesday’s shoulder as they swayed. She felt light, as though everything that had been weighing on them had lifted away and she was finally free. 

Matilda loved dancing. Even though it was awkward, even though they were very clearly terrible at what they were trying to do, even though every now and again she caught herself trying to lead when Wednesday was also trying to lead. But it was brilliant. Finally, the various songs that had been played for the more vigorous dancers moved into the slower tunes until finally the band started up a gentle waltz. She could do that. She looked up at Wednesday, smiled, and took the lead, spinning them across the dance floor. It was still clumsy, and it was definitely miles from the skill of the Addams clan, but it was the best they had managed all evening.

"Where did you learn to do this?" 

"Jenny used to love old music," Matilda whispered, using her powers a fraction to stop Wednesday from stepping on her feet. "She had danced with her father as a little girl and taught me what she remembered. We used to put on old films and dance along as best we could with the music."

She smiled as she remembered. It had been years since she and Jenny had danced. It had been years since they had spent much time together at all. She wondered what her guardian would make of her, dancing in a room full of people who looked as though they could have walked straight out of one of those old films that they used to like so much. 

"I'm just glad there's at least one that we can keep up with."

Wednesday smiled at her then, and though Matilda had thought for all the world that Wednesday hated dancing, she looked as happy as Matilda had ever seen her.

"Wednesday, are you sure that you're not just doing this for me? That you wouldn't rather go back to researching?"

"I'm sure. Of all the things that I would like to be doing now, dancing with you, seeing you smile, is at the top of the list."


	94. Wednesday

Wednesday was exhausted. They had danced for hours, which was more than she had ever managed. She wasn’t sure how she had done it but now her feet ached and she was certain that she was going to have a blister on one of her toes. But Matilda had smiled at her all night, and that made it worth it. They walked slowly, hand in hand, back to the room that she had claimed for the duration of their stay. A lot of the other younger Addams’ were sharing, but she had argued her way to a room of her own. Or at least, a room that she could share with Matilda and nobody else. 

“That was fun,” she said, flopping down onto the bed. It was slightly too squishy for her liking, with deep crimson sheets that were a far cry from her usual choice of decor. But it was a door that she could close away from everyone else in the house and that was incredibly valuable. 

“It was, though I will confess that I didn’t think that you would think so. I had half expected to be dancing with The Thing or one of Agnella’s ravens all evening.”

“Why would you be dancing with a raven?”

“Because even they would be a better dancer than you.”

She opened her mouth to reply when a blanket hit her in the side of the head, flopping over her and entirely obscuring her vision. 

“Hey!” By the time she had dragged the offending article off Matilda had rearmed herself, an giggling was throwing anything soft that she could find in Wednesday’s direction. “That’s it! War!”

She swept up an armful of balled socks and took refuge down the opposite side of the bed, popping up to toss her fuzzy projectiles towards her adversary. Pillows, blankets, odd pieces of clothing and one pair of pants soared back and forth across the room, and Wednesday hadn’t realised how she had been laughing until a sharp knock at the door stilled all objects in the air. She looked to Matilda, who beckoned the door open to reveal Agnella, standing in the hallway and tapping her feet. 

“Ladies. I trust that you are going to cease this revelry soon and get some sleep?”

“Yes we were just-”

“I don’t care what you were just. Tomorrow we leave for the lighthouse and you need to be rested for it to be worthwhile. Go. To. Bed.”

“Yes Matron.”

Wednesday tried not to giggle as Matilda pushed the door closed with her powers, but she did concede that they should probably get some sleep. There was a very big day ahead of them and even though she wasn’t sure what was going to happen, and even though she knew that they had a far better chance of getting Pugsley back with all of the clan behind her she still wasn’t sure that they were going to win. 

They slipped into bed, and Wednesday took her usual spot curled up against Matilda’s chest. She had always slept on her back, but there was something so comfortable about laying on Matilda’s chest, listening to her heart beat. It had taken her no time to get used to the change, and when Matilda had been away, being healed from wounds that she felt a small measure of responsibility for causing she hadn’t slept anywhere near as well.

“Wednesday,” she heard Matilda whisper, curling in closer still. “You will be okay to go out there tomorrow, right?”

“I can’t see why I wouldn’t be.”

“Well, it took a long time for you to heal and-”

“It took me a couple of days and I’m fine now. I won’t make that mistake again. We’ll be okay.”

“But what if-”

“Artemisia,” she tilted the worried face up to hers and pressed a gently kiss to her lips. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I just-”

Another kiss, and Matilda didn’t pull away to object again.


	95. Matilda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning - from this chapter alone I have to change the rating from teen and up to mature.
> 
> If you don't want to read _that_ kind of scene then I would skip this part and move on to the next one...
> 
> For those of you who may have been waiting for this, well, here it is. 
> 
> This is the chapter that took me the longest to write because I am at my core a terribly awkward nerd...

Matilda deepened the kiss. The confidence had come from somewhere and she wasn’t letting herself think about it. There was something in the air, an electricity as she looked down into Wednesday’s dark eyes. She knew what she wanted, what they had both wanted for some time.

The hand that was around Wednesday’s waist moved as though on it’s own, running down the smooth silk of her night dress until it found skin, then tracing a slow path back up. Wednesday’s skin was almost as smooth as the silk that covered it, soft and warmer than she had expected from a girl whose hands and lips were always so cool. Still their lips bushed against one another's and Matilda felt her heart racing. 

She pulled Wednesday in closer, feeling the catch in her breath as she deepened the kiss. 

“Is this okay?” She whispered, as her hand moved still further up Wednesday’s leg. She was pushing the night dress up as she went. 

Wednesday nodded, her eyes wide. 

“Tell me if it’s too much okay?”

Another nod. 

Matilda had read, more times than she would admit, about what it was like to be with someone else. But now that she was there she couldn’t remember anything that been in the pages of those books. She was going to have to rely on instinct. 

Her hand brushed the top of Wednesday’s leg, pushing the night dress all the way up and over her hips. There was a hitch in Wednesday’s breath as she let her fingers stray upwards, away from bare skin to brush over her chest. She was met by a low groan. 

“Something the matter?” she whispered, smiling. 

“Tease.” It was barely more than a breath. 

“That’s all part of the fun isn’t it?”

She flicked her power, circling it around Wednesday’s nipples. That drew another gasp which she stifled with a kiss. Moments later Wednesday’s hands found hers, and then moved down her arms, wrapping around her and pulling her closer. One of Wednesday’s legs was between hers and pressing up, a sudden hard warmth against her pussy. She couldn’t hold back the small moan that passed her lips, nor could she resist rubbing a little against the skin that was now hers. She was wet, excited for what they were doing, for what was to come. 

Her hand wandered downward again, and this time she couldn’t wait to feel what was there. Slipping a finger along the surprisingly smooth, short hair of Wednesday’ mound until her finger brushed over the bud of her clit. She was rewarded with another gasp, and an arching towards her hand as she ran her finger around and around in tiny circles. It was fascinating just to watch Wednesday, usually so proper, coming apart in her hands. Her powers were still tracing a pattern across her nipples and though Wednesday’s hands were still on her skin there was no focus to their movement. 

“More?” She whispered, as low as she could. 

“Please…”

She hadn’t expected the begging to turn her on, but there it was, and she ground herself down a little harder on Wednesday’s thigh as she dipped a single finger into the waiting, wet opening. With her eyes focused on the face, watching for any sign of discomfort, she pressed deeper, thrusting her fingers in and out at a steadily more rapid pace. She moved her powers from the nippers to Wednesday’s clit keeping pressure on it all the time while she played lower. Wednesday’s hand found her back, fingers gripping on as though they were the only things keeping her grounded. There were going to be nail marks in her shoulder the next day but Matilda didn’t care. She pressed a kiss to Wednesday’s next, kissing her way down, down and moving ever faster. 

“Artemisia-”

She increased her pace, letting her mouth drop lower so that her teeth found Wednesday's firm nipples to bite and suck on. She was being rough now, far rougher than she had intended to be, but every moment that she was touching Wednesday her breathing increased, and the more she pushed the more Wednesday seemed to lose herself. She was squeezing against Matilda's fingers, as though trying to pull them up deeper inside. It was all that Matilda could do to keep her hands where they were, Wednesday was so sexy, lost in sensation and had she not been determined to pull her to the peak of ecstasy she could have been taking herself there just from the sight. 

She leaned in close to Wednesday’s ear, puling away with her hands just a little, thrusting and stroking slowly, teasingly.

“I’m going to make you come, Wednesday. I’m going to touch you like this until you come apart for me. Until you can’t think of anything other than me.”

Wednesday moaned, trying to grind back down onto Matilda’s fingers but she pulled them back. 

“Do you want to come for me?”

Wednesday moaned again, nodding furiously. 

“What do you say?”

She didn't know where this dominant side of her had come from, but Matilda loved what simple words were able to do. They were going to have to experiment much, much more. 

“Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please, Artemisia, I want to come.”

It was all Matilda needed to hear. She thrust back in with renewed vigour, her powers winding around her fingers, toying and tugging and stroking everywhere that she could think would make her feel good. She was going to make this count, she was going to make her feel. 

Faster, harder, Wednesday was pressing her nails so hard into Matilda’s shoulder that she was certain that she could feel blood welling up round them 

Matilda pulled back for just a moment, taking the time to pull off the t-shirt that she had been sleeping in revealing bare skin. She had never been very confident with her body, her waist was too thick, her chest too large. She was what her mother, back when she was a child, would have called dumpy. But the way that Wednesday looked at her she had never felt more attractive. 

It didn’t take long for Wednesday to truly come undone. Matilda felt it more than she saw it, a clamping on her hand and a quickening of the breath. Then she felt the wetness hit her palm and she started to slow her movements. 

“You are so beautiful,” she whispered, but she wasn’t sure that Wednesday could hear her. She didn’t seem to be there at all.


	96. Wednesday

Wednesday knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she wanted - no, needed - to make Matilda feel as good as she had just done. But there was no energy left. She just wanted to sleep and she didn’t think that that was a feeling that she was going to be able to get away from. 

She was warm, tucked up against Matilda, breathing her in as she drifted. There was nothing better than that feeling. Of course, she had masturbated a few times before but never in all of the time that she had ran her own hands across herself had she finished like that. It had been an explosion, something that she couldn’t have stopped even if she had wanted to. It had been the best and worst feeling all at once, so good that it almost hurt, and now she was floating. 

She wanted it again, and she wanted it immediately. But she was so tired, her limbs were heavy and though she knew that Matilda was talking to her, whispering her down from wherever she was she just couldn’t focus, she couldn't think clearly enough to speak. Her lips were too heavy to move. And she was so, so comfortable. 

If she just slept, perhaps in the morning she could wake up and repay the favour. She knew that she wanted to. But she was just too tired. Rest first. 

She curled closer into Matilda's supple form, not caring that she wasn’t wearing her night dress anymore, not caring that her hair had come out of its braids somewhere along the way and was falling in waves over her shoulders. She was sticky on her legs and sweaty everywhere else but none of it mattered. She had to sleep. 

In her dreams she only saw the face of the woman beside her. She didn’t think or feel of smell or taste anything other than Matilda. That was her whole world. Everything was the woman who she planned to share everything with. It was more obvious to her than it had ever been that she was going to be with Matilda for as long as she was permitted by the universe to be. She wanted to see what the world looked like through her eyes, to learn what she could do with the powers that she so expertly controlled. She wanted everything, but nothing at all if it wasn’t with her. 

Finally, her dreams passed and she was in the blackness of the deepest sleep she had ever known. A calm, safe slumber that took away everything that she had worried about, all of the things that she had feared. Shew was home. Safe. Herself. 

In the morning she woke up before the dawn, and propped herself up on one arm to look down at Matilda's sleeping form. She was beautiful. Wednesday hadn’t really looked at her very much, not deeply. She had glanced her way, met her eyes, kissed her nose, but she had never just looked. She had freckles across the bridge of her nose, and long but sparse eyelashes. Her skin was a far creamier brown than Wednesday’s own and there were little moles on her shoulder, a cluster of them all in one place. Wednesday wanted to kiss every single one. 

She let her eyes roam down the sleeping figure, taking in the full breasts that she had felt the previous evening. Matilda always wore slight baggy clothes, and Wednesday could suddenly see why. Her thighs were thicker than Wednesday’s too, muscular almost. And as she lay on her side Wednesday could see the perfect, pert round ass that she admitted that she had looked at more than once as Matilda had been walking around the Addams home. She was womanly in a way that Wednesday had never been, and she was perfect for it. 

Wednesday knew that she was in love. It hit her very suddenly as she looked down at Matilda. Something about the night before, and the smile that came to her face that morning as she remembered what they had been together made it so clear. She loved Matilda Wormwood-Honey and she needed to tell her as soon as she woke up. 

She leaned down, pressing a kiss to Matilda’s lips, and then to her nose, and her forehead, and moved down to her neck the same way that Matilda had done to her the night before. She felt the stirring beneath her and smiled, looking up as one of Matilda's eyes fluttered open to look at her. 

“What time is it?”

“I think,” she said, shuffling closer to where Matilda lay, “ it’s time that I repaid you for what you did to me last night,” she pressed another kiss to the top of Matilda’s chest, “and this time I’m not going to let you distract me.”


	97. Matilda

Matilda showered, though she half wanted to keep the scent of Wednesday on her. There would be more chances. 

They had chosen the clothing for the day the night before and she was glad because she wasn’t thinking well. They had opted for matching black leggings and hoodies, and it was very strange indeed to see Wednesday in anything other than one of her stern black dresses. 

“I still think you should have let me shower with you.”

“I still think that we would never have actually made it out of the door if you had.” 

She had to smile. Wednesday had gained an endearing, cheeky edge that she was enjoying far more than she was prepared to let on. 

Dressed and ready to go they all gathered in the ballroom of the manor. It seemed that not everyone had favoured such simple clothing. There were Addams’ in capes, in full suits, in dresses that she SW certain would be too tight to run in and one man at the back appeared to be getting himself into a full suit of armour. It was an odd sight to behold, but that was the Addams clan. 

Wednesday squeezed her hand, then walked to the front of the room to stand beside her mother and Grandmama. It was only then that she noticed that Gomez hadn’t appeared, nor had Lurch. She supposed that they were staying home to look after the manor, and Pubert. But it was strange to see Morticia without her husband. 

“Family,” Wednesday began, back to her stern, still self. The self that everyone else saw. “It is time. We go now, with all the might of the Addams clan. We walk toward war.”

There was silence in the room and Matilda was impressed. She had never been good at public speaking, but it seemed to be what Wednesday was made to do. She could be a great leader if she wanted to be. 

“Toady, we go to the Valk fortress and we take back the boy that was stolen from us. Our will is far greater than theirs and we shall not fail. In waves we go, taking them by a storm of threes. First, the fighters, then the mags and the rest of us at the rear. We will break down their door, burst through their walls, and we will give them the kind of hell that they will never forget.”

There was a cheer in the hall that Matilda joined with relish. Adrenaline coursed through her, the fever that had been brought on by those around her. She was one of many, for the first time in her life she felt like she was part of something real, something huge. 

She was going to walk to war.


	98. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!
> 
> I'm so sorry for being a day late with this one. The day ran away with me yesterday.
> 
> Hope you are all keeping safe and well.
> 
> Kat

It was all activity. Fester was instructing the drivers of the sea walking machines for a final time. The youngsters were testing their unusual weapons. Matrons were gathering bottles of strange smelling liquids and some of the women were standing chanting in a circle. 

Everywhere in the ballroom was noise. Noise and chatter and people. Family. 

This was what being an Addams was all about.

She walked among them, adjusting a contraption that was leaning too far to the left, helping someone sharpen a blade. Finally she came to the back of the room where Matilda was standing, her eyes glazed, her arms out, and a wall of knives circling her. She really had been practising. The knives moved so quickly she could hardly see them, weaving in and out so that none of them touched another as it passed. She was a walking wall of sharp, and she looked incredible. 

Once again Wednesday felt like they had a chance to win.

“Wednesday?” 

Matilda had stilled the blades, and was smiling at her. 

“You really do have that under control now.”

She nodded. 

“It’s all about focus, clearing my mind so that I can think and feel with my power not the rest of my senses. Your Grandmama seemed to know a lot about it actually, when we get back I really must ask her about it.”

“Shes likes old stories, I’m sure she was just making guesses and hoping that one of them hit.”

“I don’t know, between her and Agnella they certainly seemed to know how it all should work. They think I should be able to manipulate other forces as well but they aren’t sure on the logistics yet.”

Wednesday tried not to frown, but she didn’t like that ideas were being put into Matilda’s head. There were lots of things that might be possible, but there was the crawling suspicion in the back of her head that Agnella was trying to find something in Matilda that wasn’t there. She was interesting, of course she was, but that didn’t mean that she was descended from some great evil. She might just have been a new strain of power, something that could become a new clan, perhaps. Or part of a very old clan that they had all forgotten about over the years. It was just as likely, if not more likely, as her being descended from a witch of the history books. 

“Why don’t we get through today before we start thinking about other things.”

“That was largely my plan,” Matilda frowned at her, “why do you look so worried?”

“I think my Grandmama and Agnella are getting ahead of themselves. That’s all.”

“I think they want to help me. Though yes they did seem overly excited about it all.”

“You’re new, they’ll get used to it I’m sure.”

She tried to shrug off the worry. Matilda was getting stronger, and that was important for what they were going to do. She could deal with the rest later. It was time to go. 

“Addams’,” she shouted into the hall. “It’s time. Let’s move.”


	99. Wednesday

They were going in. 

The clan had split and were moving in two directions, pincering around. One group on land, making their way towards the docks where they could take various boats over to the lighthouse. Ahead of them, those who were going under water, marching in Fester’s giant machines. Wednesday almost wished that she was with them, but they were there to make the first entrance, to break down the door and make way for the rest. She needed to be in that second group. She needed as much time as possible to get to Pugsley and that meant bringing up the rear, having the rest of the clan do the bulk of the fighting and running through to find her brother. 

They made it to the water unobstructed, and that’s where the chaos started. The machines of her uncles were in the distance, and they had definitely done their job. They had broken not only the front door but a part of one of the front walls, and now appeared to be pulling members of the Valk clan out of the house and were throwing them into the water. 

“Well, they’re having fun,” Wednesday said, turning to smile at Matilda.

“But they are throwing the Valks towards where we’re going to be. It will mean we have more to get through.”

“I think we’ll be okay. Look.” 

She pointed, to where the younger of the Addams’ were now running ahead, followed up closely by the matriarchs. The younger ones were wielding all manner of devices that Wednesday wasn’t sure she had seen all of in their planning. They were charging ahead, some on boats, some on ski type devices, and one who appeared to just be swimming but he was making incredible headway. Wednesday made a note to ask about him later on. 

“How are we getting across?” Matilda shouted as they broke into a run. “Is there a boat or?”

“I had hoped that you might have that in hand.”

She saw a flash of confusion before Matilda smiled. 

“I think I can manage that.”

They ran closer and closer to the water’s edge, five steps away, three, one, 

“Artemisia-”

She was still running, propelled along by an invisible force, and though her legs were moving over the water as though she was still in a fun run her feet were not touching the surface at all. 

“Did you really think I would let you fall into the water?”

She turned and saw that Matilda wasn’t bothering with continuing to move her legs, she was simply gliding effortlessly over the water like some kind of siren. It was a little unnerving. 

“I thought that it might feel like something.”

“It did when I started out, but I told you. I’ve been practising.”

Wednesday smiled, and reached out to take hold of Wednesday’s hand. 

“You’re incredible,” she said. “Now let’s go storm this castle.”


	100. Matilda

Matilda could feel the wall of energy that they were approaching. There were people in there with abilities, with powers, and though they were certain that there wasn’t anyone like her in there, it was clear that there were those of ability of a kind within the walls. Perhaps they were what Morticia had called witches. Ladies like her with skills in cursing and hexes. Perhaps they were all like Wednesday’s great aunt, with gifts that would render them burned at the stake. She wasn’t sure, but she knew that there was energy within and it was far more than she had felt in the Addams’ residence. 

She needed to pull her walls up and she needed to do it quickly. 

“Wednesday I’m going to have to drop us.”

There was a nod from Wednesday and she flung them toward the ground, doing her best to break the slightly heavy fall before pulling her powers in and around herself the way that she had been taught. She knew what she had to do. Keep the walls up, keep moving, keep close to Wednesday. 

The focus was going to be key, she had known that from the beginning but it was so much harder with people in every direction. Almost a soon as she had thrown the power up they were running, moving between people, jumping over those who had hit the ground. Her heart was racing, her mind screaming at her to keep those walls up tight, and still they had to keep going. 

Once they were inside the tower of the lighthouse all of the noise blended together into one jumbled roar. People were shouting instructions left and right, there were shouts that sounded like human voices, and a ringing in her head that was all too familiar. But she was stronger than she had been, and she pushed it out, at least for a little while. There was no certainty that she would be able to keep doing it. 

Keep close to Wednesday.

A bolt came soaring towards them, but she saw it and flicked it away, rocketing it back towards whoever had sent it. They were coming from all sides, and she wanted to pull Wednesday inside her walls, to extend her power just a little, but that wasn’t safe. She knew what she needed to to. The moment she let that shell go they would be inside her head. Sh needed to be selfish, at least for a little while. Once they were past the initial groups, the Matrons had told her, there would be fewer with any kind of ability. There would be the muscle protecting the twins, not the mind.

More shouts. She pulled up her daggers, easing them one by one into the spinning wall of force around her. Would she use them if the time came? She didn’t know. But better to be ready.

She only hoped that she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> My gosh here we are at 100 chapters. Who would have thought!
> 
> So there are only a few to go but Don't Panic! I have some ideas in the works about carrying this adventure on in the form of little one shots and drabbles etc. 
> 
> Which brings me to all you lovely folks. 
> 
> I know you don't know where the story is going but I would LOVE to know what you want to see from these two. Short or long, sensible and silly and everything between, be it a single scene of a full blown adventure I want to write what you all want to read because I definitely don't want this story to end. Throw your suggestions at me and I will get writing! 
> 
> It's been said before, but thank you all so much. Addamswood would never have existed the way it does if you hadn't started reading, if you hadn't left comments and spurred me on and encouraged every step. It's been an amazing experience that couldn't have happened without you. Y'all are the best readers I could have ever hoped for and it's brought so much joy to me to know that you have enjoyed this as much as I have. 
> 
> I hope everyone is keeping safe and well. It's real rough out there right now for a lot of us. 
> 
> With love and words (and so, so much gratitude)
> 
> Kat x
> 
> P.S HAPPY PRIDE MONTH GUYS. I know these two would be out there fighting if they could be.


	101. Wednesday

They pushed through the chaos that seemed to be everywhere around them. Wednesday had tuned it out, keeping her bow in her hand and the orb at her side she had one focus and only one, get through, get down. The lighthouse had been mapped, at least in small measure, by one of her family years past. It wasn’t much but it was all they had, and from her visit to their manor it seemed that they liked to be down low in the ground. Like rats, her Grandmama had said. Perhaps she was right. 

Every now and again she saw something barrelling towards them, but she never had time to so much as raise her bow before it was swinging away, batted aside by Matilda’s surge of power. It was almost scary how strong she had become in so short a time, and though Wednesday didn’t want to think about it, the possibility that she was really some terrible ancient being was weighing on her a little. Still, they had work to do. There wasn’t time for things like that. 

Through the first door, and down. 

The stairs were dark, but that didn’t bother her too much. There was a dim glow coming from somewhere ahead, and with the noise of the fighting still ringing behind her she started down, down towards whatever they had waiting. She knew that her uncles forces were taking some of the lower sections, those that fall under the water. If there was an entrance to be found they would have found it and would be doing their best to clear it out. But the Valks were too clever for Fester to be able to find them all with the force of his machines. She would have to search. 

“Artemisia, anything behind us?”

It was a low whisper but enough that she knew she would be heard once they were far enough away from the din. There would be casualties on both sides from what she had seen, and though she knew that her Granmama, Matron Agnella and all of the other elder women of the clan would do their best to heal the wounded no matter which clan they came from she was certain that there would be loss. At least that meant that there would be a few funerals to attend. 

“Clear behind.”

That would do. They pressed on. She felt a light hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she froze before the reassuring squeeze told her that it was only Matilda there, taking the guide in the dark as she had done once before. Wednesday forgot that she couldn’t see. 

Down and down in a gentle spiral until the glow that they could see was a bright, almost painfully white light. She looked back to Matilda, who gave her a single nod. With a breath, she raised her crossbow, and stepped through.


	102. Matilda

The light was almost blinding after the dim of the stairs. She had to blink a few times to see straight, and that was far slower than she needed to be. While she was still straining to see she heard Wednesday release too quick bolts from the crossbow, the dull thumps as they connected with something. Then they were moving, the slow feet becoming a run as they pressed on. 

She wanted to turn, to look at whoever Wednesday had just removed from the fight. Were they dead? Or just downed? She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to know. It was too late to worry about that kind of thing. They had work to do. 

“Where will they be?” She called forward, ducking as something whizzed overhead. 

“I don’t know.”

Running steps behind her, she turned to see a man raising what looked to be a harpoon gun. She flicked out, grabbing it from his hands and hauling it against the wall before throwing him back several feet. 

“They’re bringing out the big guns.”

“I thought they would.”

They had discussed that much before setting out. The bulk of the forces would be waiting for them, a distraction for the clan. It was the most simple of tactics. Put a large group at the top but keep the elite for those who manage to get through the wall. It’s exactly what she would have done. In some cases it’s exactly what Wednesday had planned. Fester was taking the fathers, the fencers, the ones who knew their way around sword and fist to the very bottom to work their way up. She had clearly read more than one book on warfare. 

“Duck!”

Wednesday hadn’t seen the trap but she had, and as hit the floor she had to tug Wednesday down with her powers to avoid a jetting of blue flame that streaked out of the wall an inch from where the top of Wednesday’s head had just been. 

“How did you?” Wednesday was looking at her, bemused.

“I was looking up.”

“Thank you.”

“We need to keep moving.”

Traps, men with swords and bows and other strange devices, stone floors and rounded walls. If Matilda hadn’t known any better she would have thought that she was in some kind of fantasy story. But long gone were the days when she had clung to those stories, wishing herself into them, desperate for them to be real. Faced with the fact that many of the things that she had read about were in fact real all she wanted was to be back in her dry, dull history class taking notes that she knew she didn’t need.


	103. Wednesday

It was too quiet. 

Wednesday knew better than most not to trust when it seemed as though there was nothing going on. There was, without a doubt, something amiss as the further forward the walked the more sure she was that there was something very wrong. They were on a long, dimly lit corridor that spiralled around and around in a long slope. No stairs, no sound. She half wished that there were windows to the outside, even though she knew that there would be nothing but water out there. Nothing but the sea, and perhaps any of Festers machines that had failed to survive. She could hear, somewhere behind her, the rushing of the water as it crashed against the stone of the outside of the building, but there was nothing else. No sound from above, and none below. 

“Can you feel anything?” she whispered, reaching her hand back for a moment to check that Matilda was still there with her. 

“Nothing.”

“This feels familiar.”

“Too familiar.”

Matilda was right, they had been in the same position once before, descending a staircase to nowhere, and the Valks had been waiting at the bottom. Was it possible that she was walking into their trap again? 

But she knew that it was a trap, they both did, and that had to count for something. Knowing that they were walking into danger, knowing that at some point they were going to be attacked, it made it much simpler. She just had to keep her eyes open and trust that Matilda was doing the same. 

The passage started to even out, from downhill to an even flat. 

“I can feel them.” It was a whisper from behind her and she tightened her grip on the handle of her crossbow. It was fully loaded, and she was more than prepared to use it. 

“How many?”

“Just three.”

So that’s how it was going to be, they were waiting. She couldn’t know for sure that it was the Valk twins, but something about the set up told her that it must be. They favoured the theatrical, that much was certain, and though she knew that her own family had a certain love for the dramatic, but even they hadn’t taken over an abandoned lighthouse and spread ghost stories for years on end so that people feared and revered them. It was tacky, just like that they were doing now. 

The passage stopped at a door, huge and intricately carved dark wood, it looked like it was hundreds of years old. They stood, silent, staring up at it. 

“Do you think it’s locked?” 

Wednesday shook her head. 

“No, I think they want us to just walk in there, are you ready to catch whatever they throw at us?”

“I have a feeling that they won’t throw anything at us, nothing that has come our way has been well aimed or with any force at all. They wanted us to get down here Wednesday. They wanted us to get here.”

Wednesday nodded again. Matilda was right. It had all been planned out, and she had walked like a pupped to exactly where the Valks wanted her to be. Still, she had a few tricks up her sleeve and she was sure that the Valks hadn’t accounted for the awesome power that Matilda was gently pressing around them. She was the ace in the Addams sleeve and even Wednesday wasn’t sure exactly how powerful she was going to grow to be. 

With a breath, and a nod, she pushed on the door. Exactly as she had expected, it swung silently open and she stepped inside.


	104. Matilda

The door seemed to swing in slow motion, everything slowing down. She wanted to strain to see what was inside, to know if their instinct had been correct, to know who was behind the enormous door. 

But she stood still, rooted to the spot as Wednesday let the door open to it’s full width. As fraught as it had all been, Wednesday was doing this final part with style and she respected that, even if she did just want to get it over and done with. 

As the door finally came to a stop she reached forward, putting her hand for just a moment on Wednesday’s back. A silent signal that she was there, that she would be there whatever happened. That she would be watching both of their backs. 

Silence oozed out of the room. 

It was time.


	105. Wednesday

She could see her brother. He looked terrible. Sunken eyes and even paler skin than usual. He was sitting in the very centre of the room, in a plush black chair that seemed to be the only thing in there other than him and the girls either side of him. They had created an arena, a theatre floor to make their final stand. Were it not for the gravity of ht he situation Wednesday would have been tempted to laugh. But as soon as the feeling was there she saw her brother’s eyes, glassy and empty, and any humour was gone. 

How dare they. 

How dare they do that to him. 

And there were the sisters.

They stood either side of Pugsley with smug little smiles on their identical pointed faces. It appeared that they had taken the time to dress for the occasion, wearing matching gowns of deep plum that were far too long to be able to fight in, and too tight to be practically functional for anything other than standing and looking ridiculous. 

“Wednesday, darling,” drawled Vila. 

“So wonderful of you to finally join us,” sneered Mila.

She hated the creepy unison that they spoke in, finishing sentences for one another, speaking in exactly the same tone. She wasn’t playing their game.

“I’ve come to collect my brother.”

The sisters looked at each other and Wednesday tightened her grip on the bow. She could feel Matilda half a step behind her, she was ready if it came to it. 

“Why don’t you ask him what he wants?”

“He really has been so comfortable with us.”

She refused to meet their eyes, instead looking directly at her brother. She let her arms fold casually across her chest and raised her eyebrow at him in the manner that had always told him that she was waiting for him to say something that wasn’t entirely stupid. But the longer she looked at him the harder it was to keep any kind of composure. He was just gazing blankly at her, as though he didn’t even know who she was. The Pugsley she had known had been stupid, there was no doubt about that, but he hadn’t been so absent. The brother that she had known had fought with her tooth and claw every second of their life, and though he had never matched her speed or wit he had always at least spat something back at her. But there was none of that left in his face. 

Finlay his mouth opened, and a thin rasp escaped his lips. 

“Go home, Addams.”

She stared at him, then at the sisters. 

“What have you done to my brother?”

“Done?” Mila at least had the good grace to look shocked. 

“We haven’t done anything to him,” Vila said, smiling a wide, slightly psychotic grin. “He’s just come to realise that some families are more worthy than others.”

Wednesday shook her head, dismay starting to set in. She had been expecting an ambush. She had been expecting a fight. She could never have expected…this.


	106. Matilda

Matilda was doing everything in her power to stay still, to stand on the spot and not move before she was needed. She had used her powers to ease the door closed enough that they would know if someone was coming up behind them, but what she wanted to do was to lash out at the incessantly smiling faces of the twins in front of her. 

She almost wanted it to turn into a fight, that at least would have a finite end. Whatever they were doing to Pugsley was having a strange effect on Wednesday, and just as she had when trying to extract information from Pubert she was starting to crack. It seemed that the Addams’ only had one weakness and the twins had played on it better than anyone could have. Family was everything, and they were taking hers away little by little and forcing her to watch. 

It made Matilda boil.

As slowly as she was able she started to move her powers, to wind them around the twins ready to throw them aside at the first sign of danger. They worked so very well as a pair, moving entirely in unison, speaking as though they were one voice coming from two places. She assumed that they would fight in much the same way. Two halves working as one whole, which meant that she would need to keep them apart. 

Then they could grab Pugsley and run. Running made more sense than anything else, they wouldn’t be able to take on everything that was back waiting for them upstairs but she was confident that once they were out with the object of the Valk plan then things would start to quieten down. Or the Valks would follow them back to the Addams manor and then they could fight on their own terms. Either way it would be better than standing waiting for something, anything to happen. 

Out stretched her power, twisting and curling. She kept a little with her, toying with the knives at her belt. It would be easy to pin the sisters to the floor using their overly flamboyant dresses. She could slow them down enough if Wednesday would just act. If she made the first move then it was on. 

If Wednesday gave her the chance, she would start and finish the fight for her.


	107. Wednesday

“I think what you have failed to account for,” Wednesday said, fixing her eyes on the twins, “is that I plan to take Pugsley home with me one way or another. It doesn’t matter, not really, if you have persuaded him that he wishes to say. If you have stamped down his spirit and his mind so completely that he believes you to be a family of worth. It doesn’t matter what you have told him, what lies you have whispered into his ear about what he will gain from a union with you.”

She felt herself smiling. 

“I know that you have made him all kinds of promises that you’re not going to keep, and I wonder how many of them you have had to sully yourself with already. I know what it takes to really bewitch a mind, to get into someone’s head so completely. Which of you did it, hmm?” she could see the twitch as the sisters looked at one another. She was on to something. “Or was it both of you that crawled under his skin. That makes sense, you’re too weak to do anything alone aren’t you? Even one simple boy you had to take on together.”

Again the flicker. 

“And of course if it was both of you that used your whiles against him, then it means that I just have to remove both of you from his mind. You think that you are really very clever,” she took a step forward, “using something so base, so old to bewitch him. Did you enjoy it, at least a little?” 

Their faces said it all. 

“Of course not. I didn’t think so. It’s not easy when you’re heart isn’t in it. When you are doing a duty to your family when you truly believe that you are better than what you’re being asked to do.”

There it was. The weakness. She pressed on. 

“Does it play on your mind? Being asked to debase yourself to one who you believe so much lower? To be used by someone who repulses you for the betterment of your clan? You’re no better than the servants you sell into the world, are you? Your family have put you to the same work, used you as their whores and all you get from it is him.” She pointed to her brother, sneering. “Lucky you.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

It was a snap from Mila that drew a glare from Vila. She was getting to them. 

“It wasn’t? Is that why you can’t look at him? Why you won’t now look at me?”

“How dare you.”

She was close now, so close that she could lean over her brother to look at either on of them. 

“I dare,” she whispered, “because I am the heart and strength of my clan. Not the leftovers.”

The bow flicked up but she didn’t have time to pull the trigger. Something rushed past her and thew the sisters back shortly followed by a whistling of knives. 

She span around and saw Artemisia, eyes wide, hands spread out to her sides. She shot Wednesday a wink. 

“Remind me to thank you for that later,” Wednesday whispered and turned her attention back to the sisters. They were struggling, ineffectively, against the force that Matilda was pressing them into the floor with. “Come on brother mine, let’s get you away from these succubi before you start to really believe that they want you."

She tugged at Pugsley’s hand but he didn’t move. 

“Come on Pugsley.”

Still nothing. 

So she was going to have to fight him out of there. That meant getting the Valks out of the picture. 

If it was a fight they wanted then it was a fight that she would give them.


	108. Matilda

Matilda could almost see the thoughts running through Wednesday’s mind. They weren’t going to be able to force her brother to leave, which meant that they had to strip him of the Valk influence somehow. She had no idea how. 

She watched as Wednesday backed up so that they were almost touching, staring ahead at her brother, at the twins, and back again. It didn’t seem like there was any way to break what they had done without getting them out of the way, and she wasn’t sure that that would even work. She didn’t know enough about the mind. 

“What do we do?” she whispered, hoping that the twins wouldn’t hear. 

“The way I see it, we have to put them out somehow. They might be doing something, even now, to stop him from listening to us. If they aren’t conscious?”

“But didn’t you think-” she stopped herself. Wednesday had suggested that what they had done was far more physical than just persuading his mind that he wanted to be with them and not his family but she didn’t want to have to think about it. What she did know, was that it was likely a little more complex than just controlling his thoughts. Still it was all they had. 

“Let them up, Artemisia.”

She did what she was asked, turning a little so that she and Wednesday were back to back. 

The sisters were in sync, but so were she and Wednesday. She only hoped that it was enough. 

They had come too far to fail.


	109. Wednesday

She didn’t wait to loose the first bolt. As soon as the first sister was on her feet she pulled the trigger. 

“Let’s see how well connected you are!” she shouted loosing a second bolt towards the same sister. “I’ve always wondered if it was true that twins feel each other’s pain!”

A third bolt flew. They had all been aimed well enough but for some reason none were a solid blow, each one instead glancing off an arm or a shoulder. As good a game as she talked she needed to focus. 

“Bitch!” Vila stumbled over to Mila, making a show of checking her wounds even though they were clearly superficial. “You’ll pay for that.”

“I certainly hope so!” Wednesday called back, loading another bolt. 

She pressed her back closer to Matilda’s, taking some strength from the warmth there. 

The sisters were up and she was waiting for them to make their move. The room had to be something to do with their plan, and she was expecting it to be rigged with all of the tricks and traps that the rest of the house seemed to have been. But she was focused, and she was expecting them to play dirty. She just had to keep drawing them out. 

“Are you going to make me wait here forever?”

She let loose another bolt, this one deliberately low, scraping across Mila’s hip. Perhaps she could do to them what they were trying to do to her. Break down one sister to beat them both. It was worth a try.

“Focus fire,” she whispered back. “Only one sister.”

She felt Matilda nod. The knives that had been pinning their skirts into the ground rose and hovered inches behind Mila’s back, waiting for the signal to strike. 

Somewhere behind them Wednesday could hear the sounds of fighting for a first time since they had descended. Had Fester’s forces finally made it up and through the walls? Or was the fight from above coming to them? They had to work faster. She loosed another two bolts as Matilda drove the daggers into Mila’s back. A cry rose from Vila, harsh and furious. She stomped down on a square of stone beneath her feet and the room lit up. Fire sprouted from every wall Wednesday snarled. 

Time to play.


	110. Matilda

Matilda desperately searched for traps around the room, throwing her powers out and dragging them across every surface. The fire was everywhere and so fierce that she was sweating. The flames were blue, just like the ones that she had seen above ground and they burned with a fury that made her very nervous to step towards them. 

“Is that all you can do?” Wednesday shouted, her tone mocking. She was goading the sisters into revealing everything, but that didn’t make Matilda any more comfortable. They had seen before the things that the Valks could do, and she didn’t think that she wanted to face many of them. 

She pulled all of the daggers that she had collected from her bags, sending them spinning in a wide arc around her and Wednesday as one of the sisters stumbled forward a little, the one that had taken all of the hits so far. She pressed on another stone and something came streaking towards them. She knocked it aside as a second, and then a third shot from the walls. Long, needle pointed darts that looked as though they had been spun from pieces of glass. 

One by one she pushed them aside, grinning a little a she flicked them effortlessly to the ground.

Something slumped against her back. 

Wednesday.

She turned. Wednesday was slumped on the floor, one of the glassy needles embedded several inches into the base of her neck, her collarbone at a strange angle. 

Matilda turned and met the eyes of the sister who had sent the darts and saw the smile on her face. She raised her hands, pulling the knives to her in one large wall.

“You’re going to regret that.”


	111. Wednesday

The next thing Wednesday knew someone was pressing a cool glass to her lips, muttering that she needed to actually drink this one. 

She peeled an eye open, and tried to look around. Her neck was stiff, painful. 

“Not so fast,” a stern voice that she knew. “You’re going to drink this before you do anything else.”

“I don’t want to.”

It was a reflex from her childhood. Whenever she had been told she had to drink something it meant that she didn’t want it. Where had she been? She was doing something. Something important. 

“Pugsley!”

“No no, don’t you even think about it.”

A cool hand rested on her chest, holding her to where she was laying. 

“But I have to get my brother!” She struggled, but she was no match for the hand. She forced herself to focus and look at the owner of the voice. “Grandmama?”

“Well I see you haven’t entirely lost your mind. Now drink this.”

“I don’t want to.”

She eyed the thick green liquid in the glass. It was all too familiar. 

“You made me drink it, Wednesday. I think it’s only fair that you do the same.”

“Artemisia!” 

Again she tried to sit up, and again she was pressed back down. Where was she? She looked around and her question was answered very quickly. She was still on the floor, still in the room. But the fire was gone, the sisters were gone, and the only people around her were her own. Matilda was stetting in the chair that Pugsley had been in the last time she had seen it, sitting and smiling even though she looked as though she had stood in the centre of an explosion. There was a bruise on her face and a little trickle of blood above her left eye. 

“What happened?”

She remembered the fire, and she remembered that the Valks had been panicking, activating all kinds of strange devices through the room. She remembered a hot, white pain in her neck and then nothing. 

As she tried to turn her head to look at Matilda again the same white pain found her neck and she very quickly stopped moving. 

“I’m not really sure,” came the reply as a warm hand found hers. “I turned and you were on the floor, this strange glass arrow in your neck and a lot of blood on you and I lost it a little bit. I remember pulling on the fire, pulling it all into me and hauling it at the sisters. I remember wrenching up some of the slabs on the ground and throwing them about the place too. But it’s all a bit patchy from when I saw you hit the floor. I think my powers took over a little. It wasn’t until Griselda came in that I found myself again and by then. Uh,” she pulled away for a moment but Wednesday gripped her hand tighter, urging her on. “The sisters weren’t going to be getting up.”

Wednesday closed her eyes. She was almost scared to ask the next question. 

“And, Pugsley?”

“I’m here.” 

The voice was raspy, not a thing like the voice of the brother she had known. 

“He’s not getting up either,” game the voice of her Grandmama from somewhere behind her. “Not until I’m certain that this influence has worn off. You’ve both had quite an ordeal.”

“Pugsley,” Wednesday whispered. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She looked back up to Matilda, who was looking back into the room, her thumb lazily tracing a pattern on the back of Wednesday’s hand. 

“I’m sorry that you had to save me,” she said. “I should have-”

Matilda shook her head and Wednesday smiled. 

“You’ve pulled me back more than enough times for me to save you just once. Don’t worry about it.”

“I bet you looked amazing, throwing fire around.”

Her smile faltered a little as Matilda sighed. 

“I don’t know about amazing. I think I must have looked terrifying. There are some things that a person just shouldn’t do, and I don’t think that I’m going to be using my powers for a while. Not until I understand them. It was like they took over.”

Wednesday used what strength she could muster to pull Matilda down and stifle the worry with a kiss. There would be a lot for them to talk about, she knew, but for the time being she was just glad that they were both alive. 

“Enough of that,” Grandmama bristled back into view. “If you’re well enough to be canoodling then you’re well enough to drink this.”

The green liquid was back, and there was no arguing. She sat up a little way and downed the foul concoction in one long gulp. 

“Can we go home now?”


	112. Matilda

The journey back to the Addams’ manor was surreal for a number of reasons. She had refused to get back in a car with Thing, still remembering the horror of the last drive, but that meant that she needed to get onto the motorcycle that they had stolen from the Valk family instead, and she wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of that much more. 

Then there was the fact that the Addams’ seemed to drive much, much faster than anyone else on the roads. She hadn’t noticed it at first, with all of the adrenaline that had been pumping through her, but they passed cars as though they were standing still and when she tried to question Wednesday about it she just shrugged and said that it was an Addams thing. The journey that had taken them three days took only one, and before she knew it she was back in front of the enormous iron gates looking up the front steps of the house that Wednesday called home. 

“I don’t think,” she said, easing herself down from the seat of the bike, “that I ever want to do that again.”

“Spoilsport,” Wednesday said, nudging her playfully on the shoulder. “I think it was rather fun.”

“You think being shot in the neck was fun?”

“I’ve had worse.” 

She stood, dumbfounded as Wednesday sauntered towards the house, swinging her hips just a little more than was necessary in the tight leather trousers that she had donned for the ride. Stolen from one of the Valk closets. Matilda shook her head, jogging a few steps to follow and lacing her fingers through Wednesday’s as soon as she was close enough. 

“You know,” she whispered, pulling Wednesday in closer, “if you’re going to walk like that I’m going to ask you to put trousers on far more often.”

The faintest blush rose in Wednesday’s cheeks, and Matilda smiled even more. 

Hand in hand they ascended the steps. They were finally home.


	113. Wednesday

Wednesday poured two large glasses of thick, dark wine. It was one of her fathers special mulled brews, one that was reserved for celebrations. 

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” 

She looked at Matilda and, as was happening more and more, didn’t suppress the urge to beam at her. She was almost starting to like smiling. 

“Father says that good wine can accompany any occasion, and I think this moment is very much worth savouring.”

With a flourish she set the glasses down on the table and lowered herself into the large sofa next to Matilda. It was surreal being at home, with the knowledge that at least for the next few weeks there was nothing out to kill them. Nobody wanting to kidnap one of them. Nobody trying to betray them. Well, probably nobody. She had her brother back, a beautiful woman was smiling at her, and they were probably going to be able to scrape through the university year if they worked fast. There was everything to be happy about. 

“You really think it’s over?”

“For now I think it is.”

“Good.”

The wine was warming and for a while they just sat, looking at the fire crackling in the grate, and enjoyed the peace that they had found themselves in. 

It wasn’t until her glass was almost empty that Wednesday turned to face Matilda again, a slight frown creasing her brow. 

“You know, you still haven’t told me about your family.”

“I know.”

“Would you?”

She smiled as Matilda nodded, and settled in for what she knew would be a long story.


	114. Matilda

So Matilda told her everything. She told Wednesday about her parents, her strange lonely childhood, her brother and how their relationship worsened over the years. She told her about the library and Mrs Phelps and the only little solace she had in that life. 

Then came school and Mis Honey and the force that was the Trunchbull and her final escape from the Wormwood household, if not the name. 

Through it all she saw Wednesday’s concern, her care, her enjoyment of the story that had been her life. It was a relief to let it all out in some ways, the things that she had been holding onto for so long. 

“And that’s when I met you.” She smiled. “And a few hours later I fell in love so it all goes downhill from there.”

To her delight that drew a laugh from Wednesday. 

“I can’t believe that you have a brother out there somewhere, just…living.”

“I know,” Matilda shrugged, “but it’s been so long I don’t know that he would even recognise me.”

“Do you miss him?”

That gave Matilda pause. For a while she and her brother had gotten along well, but the stranger she became the more she withdrew and the less she found that she had in common with him. They were on different paths.

“I think that it would have been nice to have a brother.”

“You can have mine.”

“Can I just settle for having you?” She risked a wink in Wednesday’s direction, and smiled at the pale blush that soon followed. 

Without saying anything further she put down her drink, took Wednesday by the hand and started down the ever more familiar corridors towards the room that was slowly becoming theirs. 

After the weeks that had passed, she was looking forward to a very long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Here it is. The last chapter.
> 
> At least for now. 
> 
> But keep your bookmark because I'm not calling this over. There are short stories with these ladies rattling around in my head and I am going to try and get them up as soon as I can get them out of my brain.
> 
> Thank you all so so much for taking this ride with me. 
> 
> With love, and fewer words for now,  
Kat 🖤


End file.
